Twist Of Fate
by Amarin Rose
Summary: Pairing: Seto–Amarin Summary: Seto is so busy with KaibaCorp, he decides to hire someone to help him with Mokuba. But unknown to him, he's met Amarin Marks before, and through a little twist of fate, things in Domino City are going to change...
1. When Boy Meets Girl

**When Boy Meets Girl**

* * *

Sighing, Seto closed the file and reached for the last one in his inbox. Finding a nanny for Mokuba was proving to be harder than he thought. He wished he didn't have to do it; he spent little enough time with Mokuba as it was. But what with school, and work, and the upcoming Battle City Tournament taking up all his time…he just didn't have the time to do the things he used to do. Hiring someone to take care of the smaller things, like making Mokuba's meals and driving him to school, would give him more leisure time to spend with his brother.

But it was almost impossible finding someone qualified. He'd gone so far as to advertise in America, saying that applicants didn't even have to speak Japanese. Both he and Mokuba were fluent in English, so it wasn't like it would matter.

Flipping open the final file, he started reading about his last applicant, Amarin Marks. Born and raised in San Francisco, California, and had gone to UCLA, graduating with a 3.7 GPA. She seemed extremely intelligent, having graduated from high school at fifteen, and college with a Bachelors' degree in Childcare three years later. Excellent references from two daycares and several families; had volunteered at homeless shelters and orphanages. Knew CPR, first aid, had passed an EMT course with flying colors, and she'd actually chosen Japanese as her foreign language when she was in college.

"She sounds too good to be true," Seto murmured. But if her background checked out, she'd (hopefully) be perfect.

* * *

**Two Weeks Later**

* * *

Slinging her laptop case and her purse/oversized satchel over her shoulder, Amarin Rose Marks pulled her two carry-on bags down from the overhead compartment and headed off the plane. She was glad she'd waited until the majority of the passengers had already disembarked, as she didn't have to continually dodge around other people gathering their things up.

As she reached the end of the exit ramp, she began to look around for someone holding a sign with her name on it. The communiqué from Mr. Kaiba had said someone would meet her and she wasn't sure if the person sent would know what she looked like.

It was only a matter of minutes before she caught sight of him – he was literally head and shoulders above the rest of the crowd. Over six feet tall – unusual for a native Japanese – with thick, cinnamon colored hair shadowing his face from view. He was and switching back and forth between looking at a photo in his hand and the passengers disembarking from her plane. Feeling a jolt of recognition, even though she had no clue who he was, she knew he was here for her.

Only…she was **sure** that she'd met him before. Just…not in this life?

"Sometimes I really hate this mystical crap," she muttered to herself. She had originally planned to take Spanish in college; after all, she'd learned quite a bit of it growing up in Los Angeles. But some instinct, some sixth sense or what have you, told her to take Japanese of all things. And right after graduation, she'd heard about this job. Fate? Coincidence? Or did the Gods just like to play with her head?

Her grandmother had taught her all about the Tarot, but it had never been this…vivid, straight out of the blue

Deciding it didn't really matter – things would reveal themselves in time, they always did – she made a beeline for the man in the blue trenchcoat. As she neared her destination, she saw his head come up and he looked straight at her. Her breath whooshed out of her as she caught sight of his face. He had eyes as blue and deep as she'd ever seen, and so soulful she thought she might cry at the sight of all the hidden emotion in them. It was as if he'd kept his feelings from expressing themselves in the rest of his body and **all** of them were gathered in those deep blue pools.

Snapping herself out of her reverie, she bowed slightly, and said, using her Japanese for the first time since her sophomore year, "Are you looking for me?"

He nodded dumbly, before seeming to snap himself out of his own trance and said, "Miss Marks?"

Smiling, Amarin said, "Please, call me Amarin."

"Kaiba Seto," he said and she barely managed to keep her shock from showing. Her new employer, CEO of a multi-**billion**-dollar company, had come to pick her up from the airport **personally**? Good thing she'd opted to wear a more reserved dress and jacket combo instead of her usual travel apparel of jeans and a T-shirt. "You can call me Seto, if you like."

She could hear the resignation in his voice, though – he didn't **want** her to call him Seto. And it wasn't because he thought he was above her, either; he just wasn't comfortable with people calling him by his given name. Which was fine with her; she could definitely oblige. "That's all right, Mr. Kaiba; we should keep some kind of formality going here."

She could see the surprise in his eyes, but he only smiled slightly – **very** slightly, only a minor upturning of his lips – and nodded. "Very well. Do you need to pick anything up from baggage claim?"

Shaking her head, Amarin said, "No, I have everything I need for a week in my carry-ons. The rest of my belongings should arrive within a day or two; I'll be fine until then."

She was quite familiar with the calculating look he gave her – most people, even her own parents, were quite surprised with how little she packed. "All right. Then, if you're ready to go?"

She nodded and followed him through the busy airport. It was odd to hear people around her talking in Japanese; she'd heard it spoken before, of course, but only in class. Everyone around her was speaking the language, and she kept hearing snatches of conversations that she had to translate mentally to understand.

Getting through Customs was a nerve-wracking experience, but it went smoothly and soon they were threading their way through the parking lot.

It was only when she came to halt in front of a nondescript black car that she realized Kaiba had asked her a question. "I'm sorry, what?" she asked, a blush coming to her cheeks.

"I asked if you would be more comfortable speaking in Japanese or English?" Seto repeated. "Both my brother and I speak English fluently, and it doesn't really matter to me either way, but I noticed you seemed to be a little overwhelmed."

Grimacing slightly, Amarin asked, "Is it that obvious?"

Seto shook his head. "Not to anyone who doesn't look closely."

Which implied that **he** had been looking closely. Something to think about. "I am definitely more comfortable speaking English," she said, dropping out of Japanese for a moment. "The courses I took at UCLA were good, but they didn't teach me everything I need to know about your language, and I don't consider myself fluent in it. Also, I never had a chance to speak it except in class, so I don't have much practice."

Raising one eyebrow, he asked, "What would make you consider yourself fluent in it?" He took a set of keys out of his pocket and pressed a button that made the trunk pop up, and gestured for her to hand him her bags.

She handed him her carryon bag and laptop case, but kept her satchel. "Well, most linguists say that when you can think in a language you're fluent in it, but I personally subscribe to the Southern California idea of fluency – when you automatically swear in it without thinking, **then** you're fluent."

He chuckled lowly and closed the lid of the trunk. "Well, from personal experience I can tell you the second idea holds more true. I almost never think in anything but Japanese, yet I'm **fluent** in over twenty languages." He pressed another button on his keyring, and Amarin heard the distinct sound of the doors unlocking.

"Twenty? Wow," Amarin said, impressed.

Seto shrugged and pulled the passenger side door open for her. She nodded her thanks before slipping inside. He walked around to the other side and got in, putting on his seatbelt and then starting the car. As he navigated his way out of the airport parking lot, he glanced at the dashboard clock. "My brother should be getting out of school right about now – he'll probably get back to the mansion about the same time we get there. I'll introduce you and give you a quick tour, then I have to get back to the office."

"So once you leave for work, my job starts?" Amarin asked, not appearing at all fazed.

"If you wouldn't mind?" Seto asked, though she could tell it wasn't a real request. That was fine; she had no problem with jumping into the deep end.

"No, that's fine. Will I need to fix dinner, or do you have someone to do that?"

"I haven't employed any continuous help around the house until now; I have a maid who comes in twice a month to clean the mansion, and the gardener comes twice a week, but other than that, Mokuba and I pretty much take care of things," Seto explained. "I'll most likely be back tonight in time to fix dinner, but in case I'm not, Mokuba can show you where everything is."

Nodding, Amarin said, "All right. Um, you said you live in a mansion; am I going to need a map to navigate?"

His lips twisting in another almost smile, Seto gestured in front of them. "What do you think?"

Only just realizing that they'd stopped, Amarin looked up through the windshield and saw the Kaiba mansion. It was huge, sprawling; a rather nice shade of white brick, it had dozens of windows, some with balconies, some without, and seemed to stretch across over a block of land. They had slowed down so Seto could enter the security code in a panel next to the entrance gate and were now making their way down the front drive. "Whoo," she whistled. "Does this place have its own zip code?"

"No, but it is the only house on this street, so we're the only ones with Cherry Blossom Lane as an address," Seto said. She couldn't tell if he was joking or not, but a quick look to either side proved that there weren't any other houses in view.

After pulling into the garage – which Amarin noticed housed a limo, a blue convertible, a black Mercedes, and a sleek motorcycle – Seto helped her carry her bags inside. The inside of the house was much less imposing than the outward façade – probably because the decorations were pretty Spartan.

Seto checked his watch and said, "Mokuba should be home in a few minutes; in the meantime I'll show you to your room and give you a quick tour."

She nodded, sensing no words were necessary, and followed him down a series of so many corridors that she was sure she'd never be able to find her way back without help. Finally, they stopped in front of a door that looked just like all the other doors they'd been passing. Opening it, Seto said, "This is your room."

Walking inside, Amarin looked around and said the only thing that came to mind: "Wow."

The room was huge – at least three, possibly four times as big as any room she'd ever had before. It was also lightly furnished – a large brass bed in the corner, two side tables, a pair of bookcases and a bureau.

"You like it?" Seto asked.

"Yeah, it's great. I just hope I'm able to find it again once I leave," she said, smiling ruefully.

"Maybe you could put something on the door," Seto suggested. "I have a floor plan of the house I can give you, but it's not extremely detailed."

"Sure, I can do that." Looking around for something suitable for the job, she finally reached into the side pocket of her carry-on and pulled out a bright pink scrunchie. Walking over to the door, she slipped it over the doorknob. "There. That should work for now."

Nodding in accordance, Seto led her back down the hall, they way they'd first come – she thought, anyway – and a few minutes later, they arrived at the kitchen. Despite the size of the house, the kitchen was not all that much bigger than most ordinary ones, though it did hold an economy-sized refrigerator.

Picking up a piece of paper off the kitchen table, Seto handed it to her, saying, "This is the floor plan I was talking about. The main rooms are marked, as are all doors to the outside, but any of the unused rooms, and closets and such aren't on there."

Quickly scanning the sheet of paper, Amarin said, "This is great; it will really be a help."

At that moment, the sound of a door being slammed was heard, followed quickly by a young voice shouting, in Japanese, "I'm home!"

"We're in the kitchen, Mokuba!" Seto called back, in English.

They heard the sound of running feet, and soon a short boy with messy black hair entered the room. "Ani-sama, why are you speaking English?" Mokuba asked, switching to the other language. Then, catching sight of Amarin, he smiled widely and said, "Hi."

"Mokuba, this is Amarin Marks, your new…companion. I believe I told you about her?" Seto said. Mokuba nodded, and Seto continued, "Amarin, this is my brother, Mokuba."

"It's good to meet you," Amarin said, switching to Japanese for the moment as she bowed slightly.

"Good to meet you, too," Mokuba said, returning the bow.

"She's not quite used to speaking Japanese on a regular basis, so I thought you could practice your English until she's more comfortable," Seto suggested.

"Sure," Mokuba agreed, again switching languages.

Checking his watch, Seto said, "I have to be getting back to the office; I'll most likely be back in time for dinner. If I'm not, you can show her where everything is, right?"

Nodding, Mokuba said, "Sure. Don't work too hard." He gave his brother a quick hug, not bothered at all by Seto's slight stiffening, and then, turning to Amarin, asked, "Want me to show you around?"

Sensing that the younger Kaiba was trying to direct attention away from his brother, Amarin smiled and said, "Sure. From this floor plan your brother gave me, I can tell this place is like a maze. I can use all the help I can get."

"Great! Come on, I'll show you my room first." With that, Mokuba grabbed Amarin's hand and dragged her off, leaving his brother to pull himself together in private.

* * *

Having seen pretty much the whole mansion in less than an hour, even if it was a whirlwind tour, Amarin and Mokuba had ended up in the rec room, watching Disney's _Brother Bear_ on DVD.

Soon after the movie ended, the sun was setting, Mokuba's stomach was growling, and Seto called to say briefly, "One of the mainframes has gone down, I'll be late tonight. You two go ahead and eat without me."

"Well, why don't you help me find the kitchen and I'll see what you have that looks like dinner?" Amarin suggested, rising from the floor and slipping her shoes back on.

"Okay," Mokuba said, and led her quickly down the hall. When they got to the kitchen, Amarin went straight to the refrigerator to look at what food was there. Considering the size of the appliance, it was pretty sparse in the way of provisions.

"Hmm," Amarin murmured, examining the contents of the refrigerator. "Not much in here…there's stuff to make sandwiches, or hot dogs. There's some ground beef, so I could make tacos if you have taco shells, or I could make spaghetti if you have spaghetti noodles and sauce. Other than that, it looks like we need to go grocery shopping soon," Amarin said, closing the refrigerator door and turning to Mokuba.

"We can fix spaghetti – we always have noodles, and there's a jar of sauce in the pantry. Seto's been really busy lately, so he hasn't had a chance to go to the grocery store; now that you're here, maybe he'll have more free time," Mokuba said.

"Well, I'd go and pick some stuff up, except for two things: one, I don't know where a grocery store is, and two, I don't have any Japanese money," Amarin said, grabbing the small package of ground beef and placing it on the counter. "Actually, make that three things: I don't know how to drive on the left side of the road, either. Which is probably going to cause problems when I have to take you to school on Monday."

"We have a driver – well, actually **I** have a driver," Mokuba corrected, hopping down from the stool he had been sitting on to walk over and open the pantry door. As Amarin accepted the jar of sauce and box of spaghetti noodles he handed her, he continued, "Seto mostly drives himself wherever he needs to go – he gets there quicker that way – but he's had so many problems with the people who work for him trying to hurt us that he doesn't like to leave me alone with the driver." He didn't act as if anything he'd said was in the least bit unusual.

Worried about the younger boy, who she had befriended within minutes of their meeting, Amarin said, "So basically I just ride with you to and from school to make sure the driver doesn't try anything funny?"

"Mm-hm," Mokuba said, opening a cupboard door and pulling out two pots, one large, one mid-sized, and a small skillet. Amarin took the larger pot and filled it with water, then set it aside before picking up the package of ground beef and opening it with a nearby knife. Mokuba was obviously familiar with the making of spaghetti, and with his help, the meat was soon browned and added to the bubbling sauce while they waited for the noodles to cook.

"Does your brother work late often?" Amarin asked curiously.

A shadowed look passed over his face, and Mokuba answered, "More often than not. He makes it home for dinner half the time, but normally ends up going back to the office, or working on something here. Especially now, with the Battle City Tournament coming up…"

"Battle City?" Amarin asked, confused.

Mokuba nodded, becoming animated once again at the new subject. "Yeah, he's hosting a Duel Monsters tournament to promote his new duel disk system. It's going to be great."

"How long is Battle City going to last?"

"A week."

"Well, then, once the tournament is over, he'll have less to do, and maybe he won't be so busy," Amarin offered reassuringly.

"I hope so," Mokuba sighed, but he didn't look convinced.

* * *

Half an hour later, they had eaten the spaghetti – well, most of it, anyway – and Amarin and Mokuba were cleaning up.

"Why don't we leave the rest of the spaghetti in the refrigerator for your brother to have later?" Amarin suggested.

"He probably won't notice it," Mokuba told her. "He skips meals lots when he's working."

She got the feeling that Seto 'skipped meals lots' even when he wasn't working, but it wasn't exactly her business. "Well, we could leave him a note telling him it's in there."

"Where would we put it?" Mokuba asked. He was clearly hesitant to do this, but his obvious love for his brother compelled him to help.

"How about on the outside of the garage door?" Amarin suggested, after giving it some thought. "He'd be sure to see it when he comes in."

"Okay," Mokuba agreed, nodding. He opened a drawer and pulled out a pad of paper and pencil, quickly scratching out the message in perfect Kana.

Amarin, meanwhile, placed the leftover spaghetti on a plate and covered it with some plastic wrap before setting it prominently at the front of the refrigerator.

Tearing off the note, Mokuba threw the pad of paper back in the drawer. He then grabbed a piece of tape from a dispenser in the drawer before trundling off down the hall, Amarin following as she still wasn't familiar with all the hallways. When they reached the garage, Amarin accepted the proffered tape and note and attached them to the door.

"There," she said in satisfaction. "He'll be sure to see it."

Mokuba nodded, hiding his grin. He wasn't about to tell her that the note read: 'Amarin saved you some spaghetti; it's in the refrigerator. I think she likes you – or maybe she just thinks you're too skinny. Either way, could you eat it? I think it would make her happy. Me too. Love, Mokuba.'

Amarin's voice brought him out of his thoughts as she asked, "It's only six-thirty; do you want to watch another movie? Or do you have homework?"

Shaking his head, Mokuba said, "I got it done on the ride home. How about we watch _The Fifth Element_? It's one of Seto's favorite movies, but I've never seen it."

Amarin's eyes widened and she said, "Sure. It's one of my favorite movies, too."

"Okay, come on," Mokuba said, grabbing her hand and tugging her, laughing, down the hall.

Maybe – no, **definitely** – he shouldn't try to play matchmaker. But it would be fun to see what would happen. He got the feeling that Amarin Marks was going to turn their whole lives upside down.

And that wasn't necessarily a bad thing.


	2. Settling In

**Settling In**

* * *

Slipping on her robe, Amarin opened her door and padded across and down the hall to Mokuba's room. Hearing a rustling sound from inside, she assumed Mokuba had just gotten up. She heard typing coming from Seto's room and knew he would be leaving soon for work, so she headed towards the kitchen to fix breakfast.

It was amazing how quickly they'd fallen into a routine. The first week had been slightly nerve-wracking as she'd tried to figure out the unwritten rules of living in the Kaiba mansion, but along about the time her possessions had arrived and Mokuba had volunteered himself and Seto to help her move furniture around (her new room was about a thousand square feet; her old one had been about two hundred, so, even with the furnishings already in her new room, she had **way** more space than she was used to) she'd become comfortable living there. Mokuba had been a big help in that, always willing to answer her questions and help her out. Plus, he was extremely appreciative of her efforts to befriend his brother.

Apparently breakfast didn't use to be a big deal in the Kaiba household, something Amarin was not accustomed to. Sure, she'd had her mornings eating cold cereal, donuts from the bakery down the street, or even leftover pizza or Chinese food, but the Kaibas kitchen had both a waffle iron and a pancake griddle which looked like they'd never been taken out of the box, let alone used – until she showed up.

Part of that fact was most likely that Mokuba wasn't really tall enough to reach the stove, and there were only so many things you could microwave. Seto could fix breakfast – Mokuba had told her that his brother was actually quite a good cook – but he tended to go into work for a few hours before he had to take his brother to school, and so just grabbed a granola bar, or more likely just a cup of coffee on his way out the door. Mokuba ended up making his own breakfast unless Seto got back in time to fix them both something.

Amarin, however, like having a hot meal to start off the day, and so had taken over breakfast making duties. Seto still went into work early, but since she was now in charge of taking Mokuba to school, he normally left at about the time she and Mokuba were just sitting down to breakfast. She had found that if she handed the CEO a wrapped muffin, bagel, or something else you could eat one-handed Seto would take it with him and eat it on his way to work. And Mokuba really liked her apple cinnamon pancakes and chocolate chip buttermilk waffles.

Aside from getting Seto to eat more, though, there really wasn't anything else she could do to help out. And she really wished she could. The Battle City Tournament was going to start in just a week, and Seto was working twenty-hour days, barely getting any sleep, making sure nothing would go wrong with the upcoming competition. She feared he would work himself past exhaustion and just keep going until he snapped.

Sighing inaudibly, she pushed her worries from her mind, turned on the coffee pot and tried to decide what to make. Deciding to make something new, she gathered the ingredients for blueberry pancakes and began mixing them together. She was glad she'd picked up fresh blueberries on her shopping trip this week. They looked delicious. Once she'd mentioned the grocery situation to Seto, he'd told her that the car and driver were at her disposal, and had even set up an account at the grocery store. She now did the grocery shopping for the household, normally going in the mornings, after dropping off Mokuba at school.

Her days were a bit tedious, however. While Mokuba was at school, she didn't really have anything to do. Concerning her job, anyway. She'd finished four scarves and an afghan since she'd been there, read all the Harry Potter books (which she'd been meaning to do for a while), investigated the kitchen cupboards while making a grocery list, and, upon finding a myriad of vases, proceeded to go out to the garden and pick flowers to fill them all. The formerly slightly cold house had become warmer, more of a home, with just the addition of a few bunches of the rainbow-hued blossoms. Seto had been quite surprised to find all the flowers now gracing his house, though, thankfully, he didn't seem to mind the change.

She'd also done a bit of sightseeing around the town. So far she'd located the park (which, fortuitously, was less than a mile from the mansion, so she could walk), the library, (which, wonder of wonders, had a rather large selection of English language books), and a skating rink. Mokuba had only a half-day at school tomorrow because of a teacher's conference, so she planned to ask him if he wanted to go with her – providing Seto was agreeable, of course.

_Speaking of the genius, here he comes right now,_ she thought, seeing Seto walk into the room, trenchcoat over his arm and briefcase in his hand.

"Good morning," he said absently, nodding his thanks as she handed him his cup of coffee.

"Ohayou, Kaiba-san," she returned. "I'm making blueberry pancakes; can you stay for breakfast?"

He thought for a moment – _Most likely mentally reviewing his schedule for the day,_ she thought wryly – before nodding. "Yes, I can."

"Good. Ano…there was actually something I wanted to talk to you about," she said, trying to hide her slightly nervousness. She had never actually had a conversation with Seto, at least one that didn't involve her job.

Raising one eyebrow, he took a large gulp of his coffee and gestured for her to continue.

"I found a skating rink in town the other day," she started. "They have free skating from one to four in the afternoon, and I was planning to hang out at the ice-rink for a few hours when I got the chance. Since Mokuba only has a half-day tomorrow, I was wondering if it would be okay if I took him with me? Provided he wants to go, of course." She turned to flip the pancakes on the griddle and waited anxiously for his answer.

"You haven't asked him yet?" Seto asked, a strange tone to his voice.

Turning the last flapjack over, she looked back at Seto and shook her head. "No," she clarified. "I didn't want him to get all excited in case you said no."

He gave her a measuring look, as if he was trying to figure out her motives, before finally giving an almost imperceptible nod. "All right," he said. "If Mokuba wants to go, you can take him. And…if you ever want to take him anywhere else, like the park…that would be okay, too."

She brightened and gave a sharp nod. "Arigatou, Kaiba-san. I'll ask him after breakfast. If he agrees, I'll make sure and leave you a note, all right?"

Seto's words of agreement were cut off by the sound of running feet. Moments later, Mokuba came running into the kitchen, a smile lighting his face as he saw his brother was still there. "Morning!" he called, clambering into a chair at the table. "What's for breakfast?"

"Blueberry pancakes," Amarin said, placing the first batch on a platter. She placed it on the table and checked the ones still on the griddle. "Grab a fork and dig in, kiddo. The last ones are almost done."

Nodding, Mokuba layered himself out five pancakes before passing the nearly-denuded platter to his brother.

Quirking an eyebrow, Seto said dryly, "You think you have enough pancakes, otouto?"

Mokuba just grinned at him through a mouthful of syrup-doused pastry and blueberries.

Seto rolled his eyes, spearing the last pancake off the plate and starting to butter it.

Amarin snorted and grabbed the platter, transferring the final half-dozen flapjacks onto its glass surface before sitting down. She took half of them for herself before passing the platter to Seto, who accepted another two.

It wasn't fifteen minutes later before all the pancakes had been eaten, Amarin and Mokuba agreeing to split the last lone flapjack. Seto checked his watch and hurriedly walked out the door, bidding his brother and Amarin goodbye.

Amarin, along with Mokuba's help, gathered the dishes and put them in the dishwasher. Turning to the younger boy, she said, "I know you're only having a half-day at school tomorrow, so I was wondering if you wanted to do something in the afternoon?"

A curious expression on his face, Mokuba said, "Sure. What did you have in mind?"

"I found a skating rink not far from here, and I was planning to go ice-skating sometime. I figured since you had tomorrow afternoon off, you might want to go with me?"

Mokuba lit up excitedly, and he started to nod, but then his face fell. "Yes, I do want to go…but I don't think Seto will allow it," he said reluctantly.

"He's already said yes," she assured him.

"Really!" Mokuba squeaked.

Smiling, she nodded. "Yes, in fact, he said if you ever wanted to go anywhere, like the park or something, I could take you."

"He did?" Mokuba's previously pleased and surprised expression was now turning suspicious.

"As long as I leave a note," Amarin amended, and Mokuba relaxed.

"Sure, I'd love to go. I've never been ice-skating before, though, so you'll have to show me."

"I'd be glad to," she said honestly.

"Tomorrow after school?" he asked.

She nodded. "You get out at noon, and the free skating period starts at one, so I thought we'd get lunch first and then head over. What do you think?"

"Sounds great," Mokuba said honestly, sounding so happy that Amarin just had to smile.

"Good. Now, go get your books, or you're gonna be late for school," she told him, the clock telling her they had only five minutes before they had to leave.

"All right, all right, I'm going!" he shouted, heading back to his room.

* * *

The next afternoon, Amarin picked Mokuba up from school, and, after a lunch of pasta at a little café nearby, they headed to the skating rink. Amarin gave the driver instructions to be back in three hours, before grabbing her skating stuff and heading inside.

"You have your own skates?" Mokuba asked, gesturing to the small duffle bag she was carrying.

Nodding, Amarin said, "Ice skating is one of my hobbies, so I got myself a pair of skates several years ago. Good thing, too, since they might not have any in my size here."

Mokuba chuckled at this true statement – Amarin had size eight feet, and most Japanese women were a size six or smaller – and they proceeded to the counter so they could rent some skates for him. While he busied himself with putting on his just rented skates, she ducked into the women's changing room to put on her skating outfit; mostly skin-tight, but made of an insulating fiber which would keep her warm even out on the ice, without sacrificing flexibility.

"Nice," Mokuba said when he caught sight of her in the raspberry colored turtleneck leotard and jet-black leggings she'd pulled on. They contrasted nicely with her white skates and light tan skin tone.

"You don't look so bad yourself, hot shot," Amarin quipped in return, noticing that the skates he'd rented were the same shade of dark gray as his jeans and striped shirt. He'd changed out his uniform into street clothes before she picked him up from school.

Grabbing his discarded shoes, she dropped them into her bag alone with her own footwear, and handed him a pair of gloves. "C'mon, let's get out on the ice and I'll show you how to skate, okay?"

"Okay!"

* * *

Mokuba, surprisingly, turned out to be very adept at gliding around on the ice. He'd quickly picked up how to propel himself across the ice, how to stop suddenly, and how to turn.

Less than fifteen minutes after Amarin first started showing him the ropes, he was whizzing around the rink like a pro. Chuckling at the expression of gleeful happiness on the young boy's face as he zipped between the other few people out there with him, Amarin headed off to the second, smaller patch of ice set aside for serious skaters to practice on. Lucky her, she was the only one gracing that rink.

Stretching her arms out above her head, she cracked her knuckles and slipped on her headphones – she always skated better with musical accompaniment. After doing a few warm-up laps around the ice she got down to the serious part: having fun.

Oh, sure, loops, twirls and jumps were a bit of work, but it was so thrilling, soaring through the air, like a dragon on the wing. She could get lost in the rhythm of the wind – artificially generated though it may have been – in her hair, the feel of the ice, smooth underneath her blades, the crisp smell of frost in the air.

Heaven.

* * *

Of course, even though it was heavenly to be able to skate after so long without,eventually she **did** get tired. Overworking her muscles was a bad idea when she was the nanny for an exuberant twelve-year-old, and an hour after she'd finished giving Mokuba his lesson, she noticed that said preteen seemed to be flagging. Skating was hard on your legs if you weren't used to it, and frequent breaks were a good idea when you were just starting out.

Coming to stop on the edge of the smaller rink, she slipped on her blade guards and grabbed her bag, heading over to the edge of the main rink. When Mokuba's current circuit brought him near, she waved him over.

"I'm about ready to break for awhile; you want to go get some hot chocolate at the snack bar?" she asked him.

His previously weary expression gave way to a huge smile as he spoke in confirmation of her idea. "Sounds great!"

After stopping at a nearby bench so Mokuba could get his shoes out of Amarin's bag and change into them, they headed for the brightly lit counter at the other end of the room.

The snack bar served both the roller-skating rink and the ice-skating rink, and so had a variety of both hot and cold foods. Any kind of physical activity always gave her an appetite, so after consulting with Mokuba, she got two hot chocolates and an order of nachos for her and her charge to split. The two spent an enjoyable half hour talking, sipping cocoa and eating cheesy chips as they watched the handful of skaters out on the ice.

"So how long have you been skating?" Mokuba asked.

She shrugged. "Since I was about ten, I guess. That's when I started taking lessons, anyway."

"Lessons?"

"From age five to twelve, I went to the Y Summer Day Camp." At Mokuba's questioning look, she clarified, "The YMCA, that is. They had different activities and classes you could sign up for, and since it was summer, you got the classes five days a week for two months, so you actually learned something. I'd taken swimming when I was five – at my grandmother's insistence – but considering I lived within biking distance of the beach, it was probably a good idea that she made me take lessons, huh?"

Mokuba chuckled. "Probably."

Amarin smiled and continued, "So, anyway, I started ice-skating when I was ten, because it seemed like it might be challenging, plus I could use some of the tricks and moves I'd learned in my other classes."

"Other classes?" Mokuba asked curiously.

"I took ballet when I was six – which was also my mother's idea, but I liked it, so I didn't mind – and signed up for the more advanced courses when I was seven," Amarin explained. "When I was eight, however, I started taking ballet classes at a dance studio, and had gone beyond what they taught at the Y, so I needed something new to take. Gymnastics seemed like it would be fun, and I could use some of the stuff I learned in ballet class there, too."

"And can you?" Mokuba inquired.

Nodding, Amarin took another sip of her cocoa and said, "They're really not all that different. Lots of aerobic sports can be tied together. I took ice-skating the next two summers, and again started taking classes the year after – I'd dropped the ballet by then, since I didn't want to try toe-dancing – and I found out you can take moves from any of the three of them and use them in the other sports. They all teach grace and flexibility, fluidity of movement, so it's really not all that surprising that you can apply the different techniques to any of them. They really do work well together."

"Is that why you're so good at it?" Mokuba asked, tipping his cup back almost upside down to drink the last drops of his cocoa. "You look like you could be a professional."

Hiding her smile at his childish antics – oh, who was kidding? She thought as she copied her young charge's actions – she swallowed the last drops of her own cocoa and responded with, "Thanks, Mokuba. And maybe it is, partly, at least. I'm not as good as I could be, but I'm as good as I want to be. And that's good enough for me."

"Which is all that really matters," Mokuba said with untold wisdom.

Amarin nodded in agreement and tossed her and Mokuba's empty cups into a nearby trashcan before asking, "You ready to get back out there?"

"Yeah!"

* * *

Despite Mokuba's enthusiasm, he was unused to this type of physical exertion and wore himself out within another hour. Amarin noticed him just sitting on the ice, panting to catch his breath, and made her way over quickly.

"You okay, kiddo?" she asked, concerned.

"I'm fine," he assured her, climbing unsteadily to his feet. "Just should have stopped sooner instead of being stubborn and continuing to skate when I knew I was getting tired."

She chuckled lightly and skated slowly behind him as they made their way to the benches at the side of the rink. "Well, why don't you sit here for a minute and catch your breath? By the time I change back into my regular clothes and we return your skates, it'll be almost time to go anyway."

"Sounds good."

"All right; here are your shoes," she said, fishing them out of her duffle and placing them on the bench beside him. "I'll meet you at the skate return, all right?"

He nodded and sighed tiredly as he watched her walk away, before marshaling the energy to start releasing the plastic snap fasteners on his skates.

By the time he'd removed his skates, put his shoes back on, and made his way – slowly, because he was worn out – back the skate return, Amarin was already there, dressed in the jeans and white T-shirt she'd worn to the rink. After dropping his skates down the return chute, they made their way outside to the parking lot to wait for their ride.

"You think we should call the driver and tell him we're leaving early?" Mokuba asked, leaning back against the sun-warmed brick wall.

Amarin checked her watch and shook her head. "I told him to pick us up ten minutes from now. He's probably already on his way, so it won't do any good to call."

Mokuba nodded in mute acceptance of that fact.

"I've been meaning ask you," she said after a moment. "Is the driver you and your brother's personal driver, or does he work for KaibaCorp? I mean, whenever I call him, he's always available – I think, anyway." Her brow furrowed. "I'm not sure we've ever gotten the same driver twice; I've never gotten a good look at him. Them."

"I think they work for KaibaCorp, like the others," Mokuba said. "And I'm not sure if we've ever had the same driver twice, either," he admitted ruefully.

"But why are there so many of them?" she asked. "I mean, why would your brother's corporation need so many drivers?"

"You know that in Japan you have to be at least eighteen to get a driver's license?"

She nodded. "Yes, and Driver's Ed courses are really expensive. I don't get that, really; half the schools in America offer them as an elective course in high school, and the Y in my neighborhood even offered them in the summer for a really low price. Hell, you don't even need to have taken classes to get a driver's license in America; just pass the road test and the written exam."

A surprised look coming over his face, Mokuba said, "Really?"

"Sure. My friend Kyle's parents were the ones who taught us **both** to drive," Amarin revealed. "We got our learner's permits when we turned fifteen, and took the two driving tests when we turned sixteen, and got our licenses when we passed."

"Huh." Mokuba blinked and shook his head. "Well, anyway, to answer your question: a number of the people who work for KaibaCorp don't have driver's licenses, so if they have to attend business meetings or meet with clients, they call one of the drivers. R&D especially has a lot of younger people who graduated early and came to work straight out of college; some of them are even younger than ani-sama."

"Really?" Her lips curved up in a smile and she laughed softly. "That must make things interesting."

Mokuba snorted. "More like insane. Seto's always complaining about how immature the R&D guys are. It seems some of them have formed a Dungeons & Dragons group."

"Well, not everyone can be completely responsible, especially at such a young age," Amarin said benevolently. "And there are different levels categories of maturity. Sure, playing tabletop RPGs isn't all that grown-up, but the R&D guys obviously manage to do their jobs well or your brother would have fired them, right?"

"Right," Mokuba said slowly, obviously wondering where she was going with this.

"As long as you don't let it rule your life, there's nothing wrong with letting your inner child out to play for a while, every so often," Amarin finished. "I mean, all work and no play is basically not living, it's just surviving. Playing Dungeons & Dragons is probably their escape from the real world. Everybody needs something like that."

Mokuba appeared slightly shaken at her words, as if they'd prompted a revelation inside him and he was having a hard time integrating the new information into his worldview. "And for you it's ice-skating?" Mokuba asked, having finally managed to wrestle his confusion into some semblance of understanding.

She shrugged, but kept one eye on him surreptitiously. If he was having problems, it her job – well, as far as she was concerned – to help him with them. "Ice-skating, dancing, gymnastics, fantasy and romance novels, knitting, sewing, baking… I have lots of hobbies; don't you?"

Mokuba titled his head to the side and seemed to shrug off whatever was bothering him along with the rising and lowering of his shoulders. "Playing Duel Monsters is pretty much it. Both Seto and I enjoy it."

"That's the only hobby either of you have?" she asked incredulously.

"Seto doesn't really have a lot of free time and what he does have he mostly spends with me," Mokuba said, for some reason not able to look her in the eye. "I have other things I like to do – read books, play video games – but I like doing stuff with him best."

"Well, maybe once Battle City is over you guys will be able to spend more time together," Amarin offered.

"I hope so," Mokuba said fervently. He started to say something else, but at that moment their ride pulled up.

"Time to go, Chibi Ichi," Amarin said, and though he started at the nickname, he piled in after her.

* * *

Once they were back at the Kaiba mansion, Amarin left a message on Seto's voicemail letting him know that they'd made it home safely. Mokuba, for all his youthful energy, was still very tired, even going so far as to doze on the ride back. Though he grimaced at her suggestion of a nap, his yawn when he made to protest prompted him to agree.

Just as she was wondering whether to start dinner or wait until Mokuba had woken from his nap, the phone rang. Unsurprisingly, it was Seto; apparently he was very involved in a complicated piece of code and wouldn't be home until eight, at least.

This solved her problem quite neatly.

"Don't worry about it," she said cheerfully. "Dinner was going to be late anyway."

"Really?" he questioned.

"Mokuba wore himself out; he's taking a nap," she told him. "He'll probably sleep for another hour, at least. You get the code all written out and when you come home dinner should be on the table."

"All right," he said slowly. "Thank you." The last words sound slightly stilted, as if he didn't use them very often.

"You're welcome," she said sincerely.

They exchanged goodbyes, and Amarin hung up, wondering what she could do until Mokuba woke up. Deciding to work on her embroidery, she headed for the little room down the hall from her bedroom.

When she'd moved in, one of the things she'd first noticed about her room was the lack of power outlets, and her sewing machine was electric. Mentioning this in passing to Mokuba had gotten the resident ball of energy to ask his brother for permission for her to use one of the extra rooms as a sewing room. It was now comfortably stocked with her sewing machine, and her knitting and embroidery supplies.

Dropping down into her rocking chair and picking up her sampler, she settled in to the rhythmic feel of the needle working the cloth, keeping one ear trained on Mokuba's room.

By the time dinnertime rolled around, Mokuba was once again full of pep and offering to help her fix dinner. Hoping to combat all the preservatives and artificial colors and flavors they'd consumed in their afternoon snack, she decided to broil some lemon chicken and make a salad. Mokuba spent fifteen minutes chopping up vegetables for the salad, though she noticed a carrot or cucumber slice often made their way into his mouth instead of the salad bowl.

As she watched his enthusiasm for his task, Amarin reflected that there really was nothing better than just enjoying the simple pleasures in life. Hopefully she'd be able to show that to **both** of the Kaibas.


	3. Children, Cookies, And Computer Programs

**Of Children, Cookies, And Computer Programs**

* * *

Mokuba walked into the living room, looking around. When he spied Amarin on the couch, knitting what appeared to be a dark red scarf, he trotted over and asked, "Do we have the stuff to make cookies?"

Looking up, Amarin blinked. She set her knitting in her lap and said, "Actually, we do. I really have nothing job-wise to do here during the day, so I thought I'd bake." She shrugged. "And since I do the grocery shopping now, it was easy to pick the ingredients up. Why, did you want to make some? Or did you want **me** to make them, so you could eat them?" she asked, giving him a knowing grin.

Mokuba chuckled and shook his head. "Not exactly. Seto's staying home today since no one's down at the office on the weekends, and he likes baking, but he hardly ever gets a chance to. You want to join us?"

Amarin hesitated. "I wouldn't want to intrude…" she started.

"You wouldn't be. Besides, you've been here for two months, and you've hardly spoken a dozen words to each other. You two really need to get to know each other better."

Giving in, Amarin said, "All right. Let me just put my knitting away and I'll meet you two in the kitchen."

"Great!" Mokuba said, before running off, presumably to find his brother and drag him to the kitchen.

By the time the Kaiba brothers made it to the kitchen, the basic cookie ingredients (flour, milk, a mixing bowl and a measuring cup) were on the counter and Amarin standing in the middle of the sunny yellow room, flipping through a large book. She'd taken the time to put on a short pink apron over her white shorts.

"What's that?" Mokuba asked.

The question startled Amarin, causing her to jump, and the book fell from her hands. Both she and Seto leaned down at the same time to pick it up, and knocked heads, causing them to fall backwards onto the ground.

Amarin rubbed her head and scowled playfully at Mokuba when he giggled, before joining him.

Seto glared mock-coolly at them both before standing up and brushing himself off.

She had only been there for two months, but Amarin could tell that Seto wasn't really mad. "Sorry," she said through her laughter. Calming slightly, she picked up the book and accepted Seto's extended hand. He helped her regain her feet and when they were both vertical again, she turned to Mokuba and answered, "It's a cookbook. My grandmother's cookbook, actually; since most of the recipes are for pastries and other desserts, I thought maybe we could find an interesting cookie recipe to try."

"Interesting?" Seto inquired, arching one eyebrow.

Nodding, Amarin said, "I've got loads of recipes in here that I've never even heard of, let alone tried."

"Can I see?" Mokuba asked.

"Sure," Amarin said, and handed him the book.

Mokuba flipped slowly through the pages, before stopping short. "Look, ani-sama, it's chocolate chip butterscotch snicker doodles," he said excitedly, showing Seto the page.

"Chocolate chip butterscotch snicker doodles?" Amarin asked, puzzled.

Seto shifted uncomfortably as Mokuba explained, "They're Seto's favorite, but no one in town makes them, and I could never find a recipe. This is great!"

"Well, maybe," Amarin hedged, taking the book and quickly skimming the ingredients list. "I don't know if we have any butterscotch. I bought chocolate chips when I went to the store last, and there's cinnamon and vanilla in the spice rack, but…"

"I keep a few packages of butterscotch bits in the pantry," Seto admitted, rubbing the back of his neck abashedly. "There should be an entire bag, actually."

"Cool," Amarin said. "You get the butterscotch bits and the chocolate chips and Mokuba and I will find the rest of the ingredients."

Seto nodded and left to gather the candy morsels while Amarin and Mokuba went on their own food-gathering mission. Less than three minutes later, they had all the appropriate ingredients gathered and had started measuring out the appropriate quantities of each.

"Okay, so what do we do first?" Mokuba asked, once everything was assembled.

"Grease the baking sheets," Amarin and Seto said in unison.

Amarin grinned and looked at him. "Why do I get the feeling you've done this before?" she asked rhetorically.

He just smirked and went to get the cookie sheets they'd need.

The next half hour was spent mixing everything together. Chocolate chip butterscotch snicker doodles didn't **sound** too hard, but part of the recipe called for melting the candy bits, halfway mixing them together, and then swirling them into the snicker doodle cookie batter. The final step was to sprinkle them with cinnamon and sugar; the whole process was very time-consuming.

But finally they were finished, and had two sheets of chocolate chip butterscotch snicker doodles, and one of plain chocolate chip cookies (which Amarin had made while waiting for the chocolate chips and the butterscotch bits to melt) baking in the oven.

"Now all we have to do is wait," Amarin said as she set the oven timer.

"I hate waiting," Mokuba complained.

"Patience is a virtue," Amarin pointed out, removing her apron and folding it neatly.

"Who wants to be virtuous?" Seto interjected humorously.

Amarin blinked and shook her head, smiling. "Good point. What are we gonna do for the next half-hour?"

After giving it some thought, Mokuba's face lit up. "I know!" he exclaimed. "Seto, why don't you show her that new program you're working on? I know she'd get a kick out of it."

"I don't know, Mokuba, it's not even out of the beta stage yet," Seto said hesitantly.

Amarin could tell the idea made Seto uncomfortable, so she said, "You can show it to me when it's finished and you've worked all the bugs out."

"It doesn't have **that** many bugs," Mokuba said. "It's almost finished and you know it, ani-sama." Turning to Amarin he explained, "He just doesn't like anyone to see his programs until they're perfect."

"There's nothing wrong with that," Amarin said. "I'm a perfectionist myself."

"I might as well show it to you," Seto said, sighing. A grin lurking around the corners of his mouth, he continued, "Because if I don't, Mokuba will probably sneak you in to see it anyway."

"I would not!" Mokuba said heatedly, though both of them could see the embarrassed flushing of his face which belied that statement.

"Sure you wouldn't," Amarin said, grinning.

Seto just rolled his eyes and shook his head. "Come on. It's in the lab."

"The lab?" Amarin asked, following Seto, Mokuba running ahead of them. "I don't remember seeing that on my map."

"That's because I didn't put it on there," Seto told her. "There isn't any need for you to be in that wing of the house; Mokuba almost never goes into my lab without me there. Besides, he has his own workshop, at the other end of the house."

Rolling her eyes, Amarin nodded. "I know; I've seen it. The place is a complete zoo. Wires and circuit boards on the tables, bits and pieces of machinery all over the floor, magazine articles and design sketches taped to the walls, and not a free foot of space to be found anywhere. I sometimes wonder how he can find stuff in there."

Chuckling softly, Seto said, "Me too."

A few minutes later they arrived at an open door, which turned out to be Seto's lab. Mokuba was already inside; most likely the reason behind the open door. It contained several computers, a couple of worktables with bits of circuitry and wires on them, and despite looking a tad disorganized, it was **definitely** neater than Mokuba's workroom.

Seto led her inside and over towards a metal platform that vaguely resembled a Star Trek transporter pad.

"So what kind of program is this?" Amarin asked, studying the raised platform curiously as Seto busied himself at a nearby computer console. "I get the feeling it's not just your typical computer game."

"It's not a computer game in itself," Mokuba told her, hopping up to sit on a nearby stool and motioning for her to take the one next to it. "It's a holographic imaging system."

"I'm hoping to use it as part of a game at some point in the future," Seto revealed. He made a few adjustments on a nearby computer. The computer was apparently hooked up to the platform, because when Seto flipped a final switch, the lights on the platform came on.

"You ready?" Seto asked them.

Amarin nodded.

"Go for it, ani-sama," Mokuba said, giving him a thumbs-up.

Seto quirked a grin at him and said, "Okay." He keyed in a sequence of numbers and told them, "Now…watch."

Hundreds of tiny pinpricks of light appeared in the air over the platform. They coalesced into a giant ball, which was mostly blue and white in color. The ball then began twisting and turning as it took on shape.

"One of the kinks I have to work out is the time it takes the images to form," Seto murmured.

It seemed as if his words jump-started the hologram. The ball of light shimmered so brightly they all had to cover their eyes. When the light dimmed, and they could see again, a two-foot-tall replica of a Blue Eyes White Dragon was floating in mid-air over the holographic imaging platform, wings beating gently.

"Wow…" Amarin breathed.

"Yeah, isn't it cool?" Mokuba said, grinning. He padded over to the platform and waved at the dragon, which flew down and perched on his hand. "And the best part is, it's solid. Sort of." He poked directly at the dragon's chest and his hand went straight through it. If lizards could look disgruntled, this one certainly did. "You wanna try?" he asked, turning back to Amarin.

Nodding, Amarin walked over as if in a trance and gingerly held out one hand, as if to a wild animal that might bite – which technically, a dragon was. The dragon obligingly flew off Mokuba's hand and came to rest on hers. She gasped slightly at the sensation – it wasn't like she could really **feel** it, because the hologram wasn't solid, but there was a definite presence there – sort of like static electricity combined with the feeling you get when you lick a nine-volt battery.

"Whoa…cool." She giggled as the dragon preened in appreciation, flexing his wings for her as his tail swung happily. "It's so **real**," she said in an awed voice, as she gingerly scratched between the dragon's ears, causing it to purr.

"I tried to make it as real as possible," Seto allowed, looking pleased at her appreciation.

"Yeah, he spent **hours** studying the structure of dinosaur wings," Mokuba put in. "Hours and hours and hours," he groused.

"Hours which he could have been spending with you?" she asked shrewdly.

"I did spend some of those hours with you, Mokie," Seto defended himself. "You offered to help me research, remember?"

"I only offered to help so I could spend time with you, ani-sama," Mokuba said apologetically. "Not that it wasn't interesting finding out all that stuff, but it wasn't exactly fun."

Before Seto could respond to that, a beeping noise filled the room. Amarin started, and then pressed a button on her watch, causing the beeping to stop. "The cookies are done," she explained at the Kaiba brothers' inquiring looks.

Giving his brother a look that clearly said: 'We need to talk about this later,' Seto replied, "We should go get them then; wouldn't want them to burn." He pushed a few buttons on the computer console and the Blue Eyes White Dragon disappeared. Amarin felt a pang of sorrow flash through her as the majestic beast faded from sight, though she couldn't quite understand why.

Mokuba nodded. "Yeah, I want to find out how chocolate chip butterscotch snicker doodles taste."

Amarin grinned, shaking off her melancholy haze. "So do I."

* * *

It turned out that chocolate chip butterscotch snicker doodles were actually pretty good. Amarin was only barely able to hold in her giggles when she saw Seto reach for his seventh cookie. Apparently Mokuba wasn't kidding when he said they were his brother's favorite cookies.

Seto, Mokuba, and Amarin ended up spending the whole day together. She tried to duck out of some the suggested activities, wanting to give the brothers time to bond, but Mokuba – and surprisingly, Seto – wouldn't hear of it.

She had always been an observer by nature, and one of the things she observed was the look in Seto's eyes whenever he watched his brother having fun, whether it was while watching a movie or just flying a kite. It was a combination of a yearning to join him, and a fear-driven need not to open himself up.

It was that nervous expression of Seto's that made her realize why both he and Mokuba kept dragging her with them today: Seto was scared to show emotion, but more than that, he was scared **of** his emotions. The CEO wanted to just enjoy spending time with his brother, but for some reason he was afraid to. Having her there was like a buffer for the both of them: Mokuba could express most of the things he wanted to tell Seto to her, and Seto could pretend that he was only going along with them, having **fun**, because he didn't want to give Amarin the edge.

It was a weird way of doing things, but it worked for them. And it wasn't like she didn't enjoy hanging out with them. Mokuba was like quicksilver, always on the go, full of energy, always willing to have fun. Seto was controlled power; he had just as much energy, but he channeled it into more cerebral pursuits. It was as if Seto was afraid to abandon the safety of his own mind. But he would do anything his brother asked of him, and Mokuba lived his life by trying to show his brother how to have fun.

She sometimes wondered what could have happened to turn Seto into such a fragile soul surrounded by steel walls, yet leave his brother almost untouched, secure in his childish innocence. She tried not to listen to the part of her that suggested that maybe it was a tradeoff Seto made: his own childhood and innocence for Mokuba's. But she did wonder if there was anything she could do to lessen the pain she saw in Seto's eyes.


	4. Seto's Eyes

**Seto's Eyes**

* * *

Those eyes. I can see the world in his eyes. **His** world. Pain, sorrow, loss, hope, joy, love…yes, even the great Seto Kaiba loves. Most people think he can't feel anything more than devotion for Mokuba, but devotion only goes so far. Most people wouldn't go through what he went through for his brother, even for someone they loved. Kaiba doesn't trust people, anyone except Mokuba, really, but that's only because it was ingrained in him from childhood that emotions made you weak.

I don't know about that. I've seen the fierceness with which he duels, and I know his passion for the game, for life; even though it has treated him so wrongly, is what drives him. He seems to feel emotions all the more deeply for the fact he rarely expresses them. Rarely expresses them in conventional ways, anyway.

He has a hard time telling Mokuba he loves him, but that doesn't mean he doesn't feel it. He shows his love in a thousand little ways: hugs, kisses, bedtime stories (even though Mokuba's almost eleven now, and supposedly 'too old' for such nonsense). He takes weekends off from work and just spends time with his brother; making cookies, flying kites in the backyard, watching movies, or playing Duel Monsters.

People who criticize Seto don't know him. They don't know what he's been through, how he thinks or what he feels, and yet they feel they have the right to judge him. They wouldn't be so harsh if they saw the man I do.

True, I'm just the nanny, and even though I'm supposed to be the hired help, Mokuba really likes me (and Seto does, too, I think; though he'd never admit it. Not because he thinks he's superior to me, but because he has a hard time expressing his feelings) and so, more often than not, I'm with them on those weekends, right there alongside them as they bake cookies or fly kites. I read Mokuba his bedtime stories when Seto has to work late, and he's been teaching me everything Seto taught him about playing Duel Monsters.

I know I don't know him very well – I've only been working for him for four months – but Seto Kaiba is more than the heartless executive people think he is. I know he's not the nicest guy around – and Kami-sama help you if you've hurt Mokuba! – but he has his own code of ethics, like a Samurai warrior; and he doesn't break them for anything…except possibly his brother.

I really don't understand why he has no friends. For a businessman he's remarkably honest, he's kind, respectful, intelligent, handsome… I'll admit he almost never talks about his feelings, and his abrupt manner more often than not makes him sound harsh, but all you have to do is look in his eyes and you can tell what he's really feeling.

We all have an inner child; true some peoples' are less evident than most, but we all have one. I wonder, sometimes, what happened to Seto's…his inner child is hidden so well, I sometimes wonder if even he knows it's there. And yet…when he looks at Mokuba, I can see it lurking there, yearning to break out from behind the walls Seto hides behind. Break out, and have fun.

Maybe someday Seto will feel safe enough to let his inner child out to play. But for now, I play mother to the both of them. True, Seto only pays me to look after Mokuba, but I'll throw in **his** mothering for free.

And maybe someday I'll look into his eyes and see something there for me besides a guarded trust. Maybe someday I'll see love.


	5. Dream Guardian

**Dream Guardian**

* * *

It was the sobbing that woke her. The groans and muffled screams may have been louder, but she had always been a sound sleeper – she'd once slept through a minor earthquake, in fact, a 2.2 on the Richter scale.

But no matter how soft the sound of it was, she couldn't bear to hear anyone, especially Seto, cry.

Pulling on her robe, she padded down the hall the short distance to Seto's room. She knew he never locked the door because of Mokuba. The younger Kaiba had nightmares occasionally, and Seto wanted him to feel free to come and sleep with him.

This was the first time she'd ever heard Seto have a nightmare, however.

In the midst of debating with herself about whether or not she should open the door, she didn't notice that she was no longer alone.

"There's nothing you can do."

Amarin started and turned to find Mokuba standing there, a sad, tired look on his face. He looked much older than his years, and for once, the slight resemblance between the others was unmistakable.

"Nothing?" she asked, slightly distressed.

Shaking his head, Mokuba said, "No. The first time this happened, after – well, I tried to wake him up by shaking him awake. He, uh…" He trailed off, an uncomfortable look on his face.

"He hurt you, thinking you were someone else?" Amarin asked gently, no trace of censure in her voice.

Mokuba nodded, obviously relieved at her acceptance. "Ani-sama didn't know it was me, he thought I was…anyway, he woke up pretty soon after that, and felt so guilty about it, even though it wasn't his fault, I never tried to wake him up like that again."

"Did you try shouting at him from across the room?" Amarin asked. She knew he probably had, but it hadn't worked; Seto obviously didn't just have nightmares, he had night terrors. Night terrors were so terrifyingly all-consuming that most people didn't notice anything about the waking world while they were held in their grip.

Mokuba nodded, his crestfallen features silently conveying that plan's failure.

Another whimper from Seto's room halted their conversation.

Mokuba looked almost panicked. "He almost never gets this bad," he murmured, as if to himself. "I never should have let him make that promise…nothing was worth this…" He shuddered and whispered, almost inaudibly, rage infusing every word, "Gozabura Kaiba, I hope you rot in hell."

Her eyebrows climbing into her hairline at the words and tone, Amarin nonetheless knew she shouldn't – and **couldn't** – ask. Filing the words away in the back of her mind for later perusal, she knew something had to be done to snap Seto out of his horror-filled dream world. But what?

Like lightning, an idea came to her…but would it work? She'd have to try and find out; Seto's moans were getting softer, almost as if whatever he was seeing in his dreams was breaking his spirit. It was heartbreaking to even think about Seto being in such pain, let alone to hear it. She couldn't bear to just stand by and do nothing.

"I'm going to try something," she told Mokuba, and before he could tell her to stop, she was gone.

Silently opening the door, she padded over to stand by the bed. Seto was tangled up in the blue cotton sheets, sweating and shivering. He was shaking and cringing away from perceived attacks, as if he was at the mercy of his worst nightmare.

If her resolve had at all faltered before, seeing Seto like that renewed it. She didn't know where the lyrics came from, and the melody was one she made up on the spur of the moment, but she put all she had into this tranquil lullaby. Kneeling down at the edge of the bed, she started to sing, softly at first, growing incrementally louder with each verse so as not to startle the dreaming dragon in front of her.

"From the silence, from the night,  
come these words, my heartfelt lullaby.  
Don't cry, those who love you are close by.  
Your brother's standing by,  
And I, I who hold your heart in mine;  
I sing you a lullaby."

Seto had stilled, not moving though he was still quaking in fear. She risked reaching out to clasp his hand in hers, her voice never faltering.

"Let my lullaby cry out and reach your ears,  
let my tender lips dry your tears.  
Let my simple presence soothe your fears;  
so you can sleep now…  
Sleep now…"

She was aware of Mokuba standing behind her, quietly humming an accompaniment to her words, but her attention was focused on Seto. He had almost stopped shaking; he was still cringing occasionally, but was much less rigid.

"Don't cry, those who love you are close by.  
Come to me and rest, let me give you peace of mind.  
Leave your nightmares in the past,  
dry your eyes, rest your head, and sleep now…  
Sleep now…"

Her thumb rubbed small, gentle circles on the inside of Seto's wrist, and she put all of her love, her hurt for Seto, into this last verse.

"Let my lullaby cry out and reach your ears,  
let my tender lips dry your tears.  
Let my presence soothe your fears…"

Seto gave one final shudder before lying back on the bed, a calmness she'd never seen before embracing his features. Mokuba let out a stifled sob of happiness at seeing his brother so at peace.

"So you can sleep now…  
Sleep now…"

And with her final words, she leaned down and pressed a kiss to Seto's forehead, in a benediction of love, hoping against hope that some part of him would remember this. And that the next time this happened…for she knew there would be a next time…his memories of her words would wrap themselves around him like a shield to guard against his nightmares.


	6. Imperfectly Perfect

**Imperfectly Perfect**

* * *

It's odd. Having her here. And not because she doesn't fit in, or because she's an intrusion in our lives, or even because it's obvious she doesn't belong here. It's because she's not any of those things.

It feels like Amarin has always belonged, and she fits with us perfectly. She's like the older sister I never had, and even Seto likes her. She's become…family.

And that scares me to death. And I'm pretty sure if Seto let himself think about it, he'd realize how close she's getting, and he'd be scared, too. It's only because he's **not** thinking about it that he hasn't tried to distance himself from her.

Seto and I have been each other's only family for almost our whole lives. Our mother died giving birth to me, and from what I remember…and what Seto has **not** said…our father didn't take her death well. Seiko Ai was consumed by his grief, and couldn't bear to be near either of us. I've seen pictures of our parents – our father was a Japanese businessman from Kyoto, but our mother was American. Kira Talen was a dancer in New York before she married our father.

Seto looks like her. He has her hair, her eyes, her light skin tone. I have her eyes, too, but I have our father's hair, and my skin, while not Japanese dark, was never as light as Seto's. I think that was part of why our father almost never spent time with us: Seto reminded him too much of our mother as she looked in life…and I reminded him of her death.

I never really considered Seiko Ai **my** father. Seto was the one who took care of me even before Seiko died in a car accident. Seto was the one who looked after me in the orphanage. Seto was the one who loved me, **loves** me. He never blamed me for our mother's death; I don't think it would have occurred to him to. He's spent his whole life protecting me, and although I know I can never repay him for that, I wish there was some way I could make his life better.

And I think Amarin might be just what I was looking for. My brother never dates. He never even goes out and just has fun, unless he's accompanying me somewhere or it's part of a business meeting. But ever since Amarin showed up five months ago, he's loosened up a lot more. Except for right after that whole thing at Duelist's Kingdom, he's never hugged me in front of anyone. He'd hug me back if I hugged him first it, but he's afraid to initiate things like that. Ever since Amarin showed up, though…he hugs me more. He's actually told me he loves me several times, and he **talks** to me.

Amarin was like an answer to my prayers. The way she was able to calm his nightmare a few weeks ago; it was like magic. She brought him peace that night, something more precious than anything on earth. She's like some Angel sent from Heaven to help us.

Only, I don't think an Angel would be looking at my brother like she does.

I noticed it almost from the start; that she was attracted to him. Most women are, even a few men. They try to get close to him, try to become his best friend by using shallow overtures and false flattery. Unlike them, she never said anything, just tried to be his friend, and after the first few months of living with us, about when most people would get frustrated with my brother's ice-cold exterior and give up on any ideas of a relationship with him…she didn't. I'm not sure she even realized that Seto wasn't a very expressive person. She just kept being friendly, and overlooking his gruff comments, acting like it was perfectly normal to go for long stretches of time not having a conversation with someone you live with. It was like she just accepted him for who he was, and didn't see anything wrong with him.

That, more than anything, convinced me that she could be the one. The one to break through my brother's walls, and get him to live the life he fought so hard for, instead of just surviving.

And, of course, there is also the fact that I trust her. Trust is a big thing with both ani-sama and I; we've seldom been able to trust anybody but each other. And while I am more open than Seto, more willing to trust, both of us only trust up to a point. From the first moment I met Amarin, I trusted her; not just with my own life, but with my brother's.

And I think Seto feels the same way, though it scares him more. He's never trusted anyone with my life except himself; sometimes not even that. And he's only ever trusted me with his life. To trust her must really be throwing him for a loop.

Just like any romantic feelings he might have for her.

A year ago, I made a list of what qualities I wanted in a lover for my brother; qualities I thought someone would need to be able to make a relationship with him work. Amarin fits almost none of them, and yet…she fits Seto perfectly. She likes games, which was the second thing on my list. She's a good listener, which was something else on there. She likes **me**, which was the first thing on my list – because I know my ani-sama, and he'd never get involved with anyone who didn't like me.

My list also included someone who had a job in the corporate world, so she could understand Seto's work better. Amarin's a glorified nanny. I wanted her (or him, I wasn't picky) to be a Duelist, which she isn't. She's really handy with a set of Tarot cards, but she'd never even heard of, let alone played, Duel Monsters, before she got here. She's learning, though, and seems to enjoy it, so maybe one day…

I figured someone who was good with computers would be a plus; while Amarin can surf the 'Net with the best of them, and she did once say her best friend's father was a computer programmer, she knows only slightly more than the average person does about computers. I thought she should be someone active, since Seto's always on the go. There's a reason he owns a motorcycle; he likes speed. She likes dancing, ice-skating, gymnastics, yoga, and swimming…none of which will get your adrenaline pumping all that much.

Seto is an artist; most of the images in his programs he designs himself. I thought someone who was artistic would be good for him. Amarin is, but not very. I asked her once if she didn't like art and she said that she loved it, but she got frustrated because she wasn't able to get the images in her head to come out right on paper. Seto's working on this virtual art program that I think she'll really like, especially because she won't have that problem with it.

She can solve a Rubik's Cube in a matter of minutes, play poker like a Vegas dealer, and beat the computer at almost any kind of Solitaire seven times out of ten. She quotes Sun Tzu, Albert Eintein, Garfield and Monty Python movies. She's a pacifist, but sees nothing wrong with fighting for what you believe in. She's a regular Suzie Homemaker in the kitchen, but she **hates** cleaning. She's curious about everything, but she never pries into people's private thoughts.

She's read the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy books, the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and can't get enough of historical romance novels. She owns everything by Doctor Seuss, a set of the Politically Correct Fairy Tale books, and more Sci-Fi/Fantasy novels than you can shake a stick at. She likes romantic comedies, hates movies with unhappy endings but **loved** Titanic, can't stand horror movies, is addicted to science fiction in any form, and has seen almost every Disney movie ever made. She likes country music, rock **and** oldies, as well as pretty much everything that can be termed 'retro.'

She has a complete collection of Escaflowne manga novels (in English, of course, as are all her hundreds of books), but her anime DVDs are all subtitled in the original Japanese. Her shelves are filled with dozens of stuffed animals in numerous shapes and sizes and of all different species. There's a black velvet, neon blacklight poster on her wall, next to a full-color map of Disney World, a Mandelbrot fractal, and two watercolor paintings, one of a purple, the other of pastel leaves.

She has over a dozen body piercings, but rarely wears more than one pair of earrings; she owns hundreds of pairs, too, but almost no makeup. She wears thrift store cast-offs, designer labels and clothes she's sewn herself, and doesn't mind wearing revealing clothing – except when she thinks people are looking at her. Her hair hangs past her knees and she complains constantly about how much trouble it is to take care of, but she also loves it. She freely admits to hating exercise, not knowing how to change a flat tire, and to not being very outgoing, but despite how often she wears pink, she really is a tomboy.

She knits, she bakes, she gardens, she sings, she nags Seto to get more sleep, to eat more and work less. She doesn't mind that Seto says about one word for every ten a normal person would, or that he does paperwork while we're watching a movie together. She's friendly to a fault, almost like Téa, except she doesn't go around making speeches about it. She's shy around people she doesn't know, but she's very open with both ani-sama and I. She's completely nonjudgmental, yet she holds very strong opinions.

In short, Amarin's perfect for my brother, simply because she's **not** perfect. I just wonder how long it will take them both to see it.


	7. A Day At The Beach

**A Day At The Beach**

* * *

"Guess what, guess what, guess what!"

"What?" Amarin grinned at the animated almost-twelve-year-old in front of her as she stirred the batter for her special triple chocolate fudge cake. If she was any judge of things, Mokuba's delighted expression probably had something to do with his upcoming birthday – and his brother.

Just like her cake did. Both of the Kaibas adored chocolate – just like her – so she was making her specialty for Mokuba's birthday party.

"Seto's taking us to the beach for my birthday!" Mokuba burst out excitedly.

_Right on the money,_ she thought cheerfully, then froze. _Wait…_ "Us?" Amarin questioned, startled, her wooden spoon coming to a halt mid-stir.

"Well, yeah," Mokuba said, undaunted by her surprise. "You're coming, too, of course. That is, if you **want** to." He said this part with a barely-hidden crushed expression on his face.

Amarin could see through him like glass, however. He knew she wouldn't say no, but that didn't keep him from hedging his bets. "Of course I want to come." Her expression became wistful. "It'd be good to hit the beach again – I used to go all the time back in Cali, but then summer lasts for eight months and the beach was biking distance from where I lived."

"That must have been nice," Mokuba said enviously.

She shrugged. "I suppose. Keep in mind that it got hot as blazes for about six of those eight months, and we never got snow or really cold weather," she pointed out. "I'm actually looking forward to finding out what a real winter is like here."

Mokuba nodded, but he looked rather doubtful.

"When are we going?" Amarin asked, pouring the cake mixture into the three pans.

"Sunday," Mokuba replied, as he headed out the door. "Bright and early in the morning."

Amarin rolled her eyes. "Where are you going in such a hurry?" she asked, laughing.

Mokuba poked his head back in the doorway of the kitchen. "I have to go make sure Seto remembers not to set up any afternoon meetings, because he promised me we'd spend the **whole** day together." He grinned widely, and then scampered off.

Amarin blinked at the metaphorical cloud of dust left in the younger boys' wake. An entire day at the beach? She'd done that before – rarely – but somehow, she didn't think Mokuba was into sunbathing and just generally relaxing and enjoying the peace and quiet.

* * *

Saturday dawned bright and early, with the sound of Mokuba knocking on her door with an excited shout of, "Wake up, Ami-chan! It's morning!"

"Yes, but not **Christmas** morning," Amarin muttered into her pillow. She pushed herself up onto her knees with a grumble and blew a wayward strand of hair out of her face. No matter that each night she braided it and pinned it to her head to keep it out of the way, somehow, by morning, a few locks had always escaped their nightly confinement. "I'm up!" she called, and heard Mokuba run down the hall, presumably to Seto's room to repeat his wakeup call.

A quick shower – very quick, because she didn't need to wash her hair; the salt water, sand, and sunscreen would make it a futile effort – a muffin for breakfast, and grabbing her large beach tote, Amarin was ready to go.

She had packed the usual beach things – an oversized towel, sunscreen, sunglasses, flip-flops, her first aid kit – but also a few things to help pass the time. The latest Xanth novel, one of her old Discworld favorites, her CD player, a crossword puzzle book, and a deck of cards. Twelve was generally considered a bit old for simple playing, but she'd loved the beach her whole life, and knew that Mokuba could most probably spend hours happily romping through the surf and building sand castles.

She'd brought her digital camera to capture just a few such moments – and also to try and get a shot of Seto smiling. He did it so rarely – and never where his brother wasn't concerned – but he looked beautiful when he did. So far, however, she'd never been in a position to take a picture of him smiling, but she had a feeling, that today she would.

* * *

Once they arrived at the beach, Amarin had to physically restrain Mokuba from running off into the hot sand. "Uh-uh, chibi ichi. First we put on sunscreen, **then** we go play." As she talked, she dragged Mokuba over to the showers outside the small bathhouse. They'd all worn their swimsuits under their clothing, so none of them would actually need to use a changing room, but it would be better to put on sunscreen while they were out of the way of human traffic, however miniscule it was.

Mokuba looked up at her with eyes as wide as a proverbial anime characters'. "We?" he asked, and it was obvious he didn't find it surprising that she would play with him. But getting Seto to **play**…

Well, really, all Mokuba needed to do was ask. Maybe say please.

"Yup. I don't care if neither of you burn; UV rays are bad for you and skin cancer is very much of the bad." Amarin punctuated her statement with a nod as she withdrew a bottle of SPF 50 sunscreen from her bag.

Seto watched, amused, as his brother was first stripped of his shirt, and then slathered with enough sunscreen to make him look like a gaijin.

Well…a stereotypical American gaijin, at any rate, since Amarin was a few shades darker than either of them, even without sunscreen.

When Amarin turned to start putting sunscreen on **him**, Seto nimbly plucked the bottle out of her hand and said, voice dry as a desert, "I think I can handle this myself, Miss Marks."

She quirked a brow at him. "By all means, Kaiba-san," she drawled, a lazy smirk lurking around her lips. Amarin purposely pushed away any thoughts she might have had about finally getting to touch Seto's skin.

"Can I go into the water now?" Mokuba asked, his impatience thinly veiled at watching the flirtations between his brother and his nanny.

Amarin nodded. "Stay in sight, Mokuba."

"Haaaiiii!" he caroled, and then made tracks for the frothy foam of the ocean, zigzagging around the few other beachcombers that had arrived even brighter and earlier than the Kaiba crew.

Seto didn't bother to remove his T-shirt. He just kicked off his flip-flops and shimmied out of the cargo pants he was wearing over his baggy blue shorts, then started to apply the sunscreen to his legs and lower arms with a fastidious care that spoke of his Type A personality more than anything else Amarin had ever observed about him.

One small dollop of sunscreen in his right palm, applied with careful precision to his left foot, one small dollop in his left palm, applied to his right foot, and on up his body, switching hands with every application.

It was actually almost endearing, Seto's meticulousness. Almost as endearing as the way Mokuba made sure to stay where he could see them, going out no farther than thigh-deep into the water. It wasn't just that he was obeying Amarin's directives; he was making sure Seto wasn't backing out of their deal to spend the whole day together.

That was actually slightly disheartening, as well as heart-warming, that he felt the need to check.

Once Seto was finished, he handed the sunscreen back to her, and Amarin shrugged out of her shirt and shorts, leaving her in a simple white bikini. She'd tied her hair back in two pigtails, then coiled them on top of her head, pinning them in place. After tightening the bobby pins holding her hair up, she then began to apply her own sunscreen, making sure to get elbows, knees, and thanking her double-jointed muscles that she could reach her own back without asking for Seto's help.

Amarin was sure that she would have embarrassed herself muchly if she'd had to ask.

As Amarin and Seto walked slowly down to the beach, Seto kept sending glances her way. Finally, he said point-blank, "You realize, of course, that the main reason I wanted you along was so **you** could spend hours swimming with him in that large body of salt water so **I** don't have to?"

She nodded, a smile lurking on her lips. Mokuba was the one who had wanted her along; Seto had had no say in the matter, yet he was still trying to exert some control over the situation. How…precious. "And you realize, of course, that **you** will be the one Mokuba buries underneath a large pile of sand because **I** will be the one conscripted into helping him?"

A smile twitched on the CEO's lips before he responded, deadpan, "It should take less time if there are two of you working. Last time it was an hour before he decided I was sufficiently covered in sand."

Her eyes went wide and her jaw only just kept from dropping open. "You mean he actually managed to talk you **into** that?"

To that Seto responded with just two words: "Little. Brothers."

Amarin nodded sagely and wisely kept her laughter silent, though her cheeks were bulging out with barely concealed mirth. Her own 'little brother' was only eight hours younger than her, after all.

And **she'd** been the one to get Kyle in trouble.

"He's going to want to stay out here all day," Seto grumbled as they tromped to a sufficiently clear spot near a lifeguard tower and set down their beach gear.

Turning her head to the side so she could see him better, Amarin set out her towel and plunked her fold-up beach umbrella in the sand to shade it. "Well, no, not exactly."

Seto's head didn't turn, but his gaze focused on her. "What do you mean?" he asked as he set out his own towel, and unclipped his sunglasses from his shirt, setting them on his greasy nose.

"I believe Mokuba is under the impression that when you said you would spend 'all day' with him, that the 'day' would end as soon as we left the beach. Which means he'll probably try and stay here as long as possible," Amarin explained, tilting the umbrella to share the shade with Seto. "But that doesn't mean he **wants** to stay **here** all day, he just wants to spend as much time with **you** as possible."

Seto's brow furrowed. "I specifically said that we could do whatever he wanted; there weren't any strings attached to that."

"It isn't that he thinks there are strings attached," Amarin assured him. "It's just…when I was his age…well, several years younger, but anyway… Whenever my parents said we'd spend all day doing something, like a trip to the beach or Disneyland, they meant that when we got home, the day was over. It's not that he thinks there are strings attached, he just has a different interpretation of your words than you do."

"Hmmm…"

* * *

After Seto cleared up the lines of communication with his brother, Mokuba was even happier than he had been previously. Amarin thought they might even get to leave before the hottest part of the day started.

Or…well, at least go off for an hour to have lunch somewhere where the most intense of the days' UV rays wouldn't fry them to a crisp.

She was right. They were all hungry after burying Seto in the sand; it had only taken forty-five minutes with the two of them working, but it was work. After a quick rinse-off in the ocean – which turned into twenty minutes of 'Let's see how many times we can dunk Seto' – they headed to the boardwalk to find a place to eat, and ended up at a little outdoor café-type place. It was startling to realize that even in Japan, they had burger joints. Granted, it was more of a catchall kiosk, with hot dogs and hamburgers nestled right alongside the sushi and rice balls, but Amarin was able to indulge her yen for a chili cheese dog.

Seeing Seto's disgusted expression at the amount of relish and mustard and other condiments she put on top of her hot dog was worth the possibility of heart burn, however. As was his expression of shock when she was able to fit the whole thing in her mouth.

Mokuba dared to try the mushroom and Swiss burger and Seto stuck to the tried and true favorite of egg rolls and rice. After lunch, Amarin insisted they reapply their sunscreen. Seto then went back to sit under their beach umbrella, working on something on his handheld PC while Amarin and Mokuba searched the shore for shells. Amarin found a few sand dollars, and even a sea biscuit. Mokuba found a small conch shell, and coral-colored spiral shell that was home to a hermit crab. It scuttled away before Mokuba could catch it, however.

After unearthing a slightly chipped starfish husk in a cove, which Mokuba proudly showed off to all and sundry on the way back to their beach towels, Amarin decided that they'd waited long enough after eating and could go back into the water.

"I thought that was just a myth," Mokuba said, appearing slightly confused.

"You don't get cramps from eating right before you go into the water, but it's still a good idea to let everything digest a bit so you don't get too tired when you're too far out to swim back," Amarin replied. "Now, c'mon. I'll show you how to build a proper sand castle."

Snorting in derision, Mokuba did follow her, albeit not without a bit of arguing. "Like it's hard to build a sand castle? I've done it before, you know."

"It is if you want to build a proper one," Amarin stated. "You have to get the water-to-sand ratio just right or the castle will crumble."

Mokuba couldn't help a grimace as he was reminded of his own past failures in such arenas. "Well…maybe."

* * *

Seto was content to catch up on his work, occasionally throwing a glance towards his brother and Amarin. Each time he checked on them, the mounds of sand between them had grown larger, sprawling out across a wider area of the beach.

He'd finally exhausted the little work he was able to fit on his palmtop and was working on his third electronic Sudoku puzzle when a shadow fell over him. Seto raised his eyes to see Amarin standing before him, smiling ruefully. "Yes?"

She giggled slightly and cleared her throat before saying in a serious tone, "We need your expertise."

One brunet eyebrow rose. "My expertise? In what?"

"In architecture." Amarin glanced back at Mokuba, saying, "Mokuba says you know a little bit about it, and we want you to settle a question we have about our sand castle."

"Which is?" Seto asked, no hint of impatience in his tone. After all, it wasn't like he had anything else he needed to be doing, though he **would** like to get back to his puzzle.

But she must have had almost supernatural hearing, because she heard it anyway, and obliged him with a succinct answer. "Our castle needs a drawbridge over the moat. Mokuba thinks that we could build it out of sand; but I say that it wouldn't hold up and we should use a piece of driftwood instead. What do you think?"

Seto blinked at her for a long moment, as if he were silently questioning her sanity – which he probably was. Then he sighed, eyes closing for an instant and lips quirking in that almost-smile Amarin loved to see. "Mokuba is right, but you don't have the appropriate tools, so for all intents and purposes, it doesn't matter that you're wrong, because you two still need to go with your idea," Seto told her.

She blinked, then smiled and nodded. "Okay, I'll go break the news to him. Arigatou gozaimasu!" she told him, before scampering off back to the half-built castle of sand.

Seto watched her go, wishing he had the nerve to follow. He knew Mokuba – and most like Amarin as well – would welcome him with open arms into their sand castle building party, but he just wasn't sure he could bring himself to go over there.

Then he kicked himself for the moment of cowardice, and rose from his beach towel, wiping off sand from his ass as he walked over to the two of them. They both smiled as he neared, and Seto found his own lips lifting in reply.

The day was starting to wane by the time Mokuba declared their sand castle 'village' finished, and suggested they leave the beach. He also suggested that they go to Baskin Robbins for an early 'dinner,' which caused both Seto and Amarin to shake their heads at them, before acquiescing.

Ice cream was the food of the Gods, after all.

As they reconvened outside the bathhouse, clean and damp and in fresh clothes, Amarin caught sight of Seto watching Mokuba and stopped short. The younger Kaiba had found a caterpillar on a mulberry bush and was watching it avidly as it chewed on the leaves.

Seto was smiling as he watched him. A real smile, small, not wide, but happy.

Amarin grinned back. Maybe she hadn't gotten her picture…but this was better.

And the whole day had been wonderful.


	8. Portrait Of The Girl As A Young Mystery

**Portrait Of The Girl As A Young Mystery**

* * *

She doesn't know about the drawings.

Oh, she knows I draw, she's seen me. I still remember the first time she came to my studio – she'd been working here for about five months and was starting to really explore the mansion. I was doing one of my practice sketches that I do every so often to keep my skills sharp. We'd just gone to the beach for Mokuba's birthday the past month, so I decided to paint a beachscape.

It says a lot that I didn't even notice she was there until she was practically breathing down my neck. I'm not sure exactly what that 'a lot' says, but it says **something**.

At any rate, I first noticed she was there when I heard a quick, indrawn breath and turned around to find her staring there, a soft smile on her face. "Wow," she breathed. "It's so real."

I was startled, and not exactly pleased that she'd interrupted me, so I responded rather gruffly. "That's what I was aiming for."

"Well, you certainly succeeded," she replied, not even seeming to notice my abruptness. I will **never** be able to figure that girl out…

And **why** am I thinking that's a **good** thing? An unknown quantity is a **bad** thing, this I've had repeated lessons in…

But she's not unknown…just not completely known.

I'm giving myself a mental headache.

So she knows that I draw. But she doesn't know about the drawings…my drawings…of her.

There are dozens of them now. Drawings of her in the garden, surrounded by flowers, drawings of her in the gym, practicing her gymnastics or her ballet, even a drawing of her ice-skating, done from memory from that one time Mokuba dragged me along when they went to the rink. Drawings of her laughing, smiling, singing, thinking …

I don't think she'd mind those drawings. I'm pretty sure she'd be flattered. But if I showed her those drawings, a part of me would want to show her the others – the ones that are complete fantasy. The other drawings are of all the different ways I've seen her – the special ones are ones I created from the depths of my own heart.

There's one of her as the Change of Heart card – I was trying to think up some new cards for the Fall line and ended up thinking about what she might suggest – angelic and demonic in turn, and always lovely. There's one of her next to my Blue Eyes, her standing in front of the dragon, who has his head lowered next to hers. She has a soft smile on her face, and is scratching him behind the ears like a big cat.

I've never wished more to be a dragon than when I see that picture.

There's one of her on the beach, in a bikini. I've actually seen her in one, but the one in the picture is much smaller, and her hair is streaked with the gold of sunset.

And then there are the even more secret drawings…ones in which she's not always wearing clothes.

Oh, they're not X-rated, not even really R-rated. She might be wearing nothing more than her hair, but…

What **hair**. In the picture included in her résumé, her hair was up and I couldn't tell just how long it was. When I first saw her, she had it pulled back in some sort of intricate knot that also didn't show how long it was.

It wasn't until she'd been living here about three weeks that I finally saw her with her hair down. She was in the kitchen, making breakfast, and apparently, while she was dressed, hadn't had a chance to do anything with her hair yet.

That hair… It's almost like a living thing. A mass of tousled curls, shining like a black silk waterfall flowing down past her knees.

That hair's made an appearance in my dreams more than once. It's also been the focus of quite a few of my pictures.

My favorite picture is the one of her with angel wings, where she's sitting on a bluff overlooking the ocean. One knee is drawn up and her arms are folded over it, hiding all the more intimate bits of her body from view. She looks utterly innocent…and devastatingly sexy.

Innocence. That is the perfect word to describe her. She exudes innocence. But she's not naïve, she's just…seen the good and the bad in the world, and has somehow managed to revel in the good, while not letting the bad turn her cynical.

I envy that about her. I can't remember a time when I wasn't jaded.

I'm not even entirely sure why I draw her. Oh, the most obvious answer is because she's beautiful – but she's not. At least, not by modern terms. She's too tall – even by American standards – her features are too sharp, and her curves are too soft, not at all the willowy thinness of the bordering-on-anorexia crowd that most people today seem to think is so sexy.

Most people are idiots. I got that from Amarin – I think she's right.

She does, however, have this inner beauty; and yes, I know how that sounds, especially coming from me on the heels of a ten minute treatise about the pictures I draw of her. It's not like she doesn't care what anyone thinks of her – it's more like she's not going to let anyone's opinion of her change who she is.

Self-confidence is amazingly sexy. That is, if you think self-confidence and self-esteem are one and the same. And if anyone should know, it's me – they're not.

But she does have this innate aura of happiness. It's as if her baseline emotion is joy.

My baseline emotion is worry. And now I worry about what the changes she's brought to my life mean.

Before she arrived, whenever I wanted to practice drawing people, I'd use Mokuba. I was never much of one for picture-taking – though Amarin, apparently, is quite the shutter-bug, as every month or so she'll give me the doubles of whatever prints she's taken; all of them have either myself or Mokuba in them – but I like to think I can capture the essence of the little ball of the energy I call my brother much better than a hunk of plastic and metal.

Amarin takes pretty good candid shots with her camera; but she isn't in any of them, and I wanted to have a few pictures of her around, as well.

A few, a few dozen…a few hundred.

I'm not even sure if I'm purposely deluding myself, or if I really haven't figured out what this means – what she means to me. Right now, I'm not willing to admit to anything more than this:

She's nice, and I like the way she looks. Anything else…I'm not even ready to admit to myself, much less anyone else.

It's ironic, because I've never really put much stock into how people look. Take Gozabura, for instance. In public he presented this façade of a kind philanthropist. He wore tailored suits which cost more than some people's yearly salaries and his one supposed vice was that he smoked illegal Cuban cigars – not that anyone knew they were anything but legal – and indulged himself in a boyhood hobby of playing chess. In private…

He was a sadist who built weapons for the highest bidder and only cared about the bottom line and how much power he could wield over his underlings. He flaunted his wealth by wearing such expensive clothes and simultaneously not paying most people in his employ enough to feed their children. He smoked those cigars because he was secure in his own immortality – idiot – and played chess because it was a way to improve his already cutthroat business strategy.

In contrast, take Mokuba. He appears like your average Japanese-American teenager – middle-class, even, since while I'm fond of wearing trench coats, neither of us like fancy clothes so he normally ends up in a T-shirt and jeans – but in reality? In reality, he's the heir to KaibaCorp; not that I think he ever really **wants** to run the company, though maybe one day one of his children will. He's got an IQ that, while it doesn't even approach mine, is still well above average. His hacking skills are second only to mine, and he's a very quick thinker.

And then…Amarin. Outwardly, it's impossible to tell her ethnicity. I, myself haven't yet figured it out aside from ascertaining that she's not Hispanic, Native American, or Asian. Disregarding that for a moment, she appears like your typical California girl. Maybe less jewelry – I've never seen her wear much more than a few pairs of earrings or a bracelet – and almost never any makeup – does Chapstick count? – and her clothing, while not conservative, is chosen more for comfort than style.

Yes, well, you…become accustomed to the way someone looks when you've drawn several dozen pictures of them.

In realty, she is…an enigma. She's lived here with us for over half a year and I think she's ferreted out more about my past than I have about hers. No mean feat, that. I **never** talk about myself.

And…neither does she. Not really. She almost never volunteers any information about herself, and when I – or, in almost all cases, Mokuba – does ask her a specific question, she's very vague.

I know her best friend's name is Kyle; that they have the same birthday. I know Kyle's family considers her a member, but I don't know how many of them there are. I don't know anything about **her** parents, but I believe she'd make a wonderful mother – I know she's made a fantastic sister to Mokuba.

And she's…something, to me. Not a mother, though she is maternal to nearly everyone she meets, not a sister, though she does nag…

Just…family.

I know she doesn't believe in God, but I haven't figured out what religion she follows. She once said that atheism is not having a religion, instead of not believing in God, like most people think. I know she believes in fate, destiny, and karma.

I believe that my karma sucks, and that it is my destiny to spend the rest of my existence trying to make up for all the hurt I've put Mokuba through. I hope that Amarin is fated to help me become a better person. And I believe that I shouldn't tell her about these pictures until I'm ready to admit to what they mean. I know she'd be flattered by the pictures, and I'm not even sure she'd really mind the ones of her less-than-dressed – she'd definitely be flustered to find that she's the subject of about eighty percent of my personal, un-work-related drawings – but still I keep them from her.

I'd like to think it's because I really don't know how to bring the subject up, but I know that's yet another excuse.

I truly believe it's because, while in reality she might be a mystery to me…these pictures are a part of her I can know completely. And I want to keep them to myself – keep her to myself – for just a little while longer.


	9. Amarin's Diary

**Amarin's Diary**

* * *

**Egyptian**

Biaw – Mine  
Mery-i – Beloved  
Miw-sher – Kitten

* * *

**French**

Aimee – Sweetheart

* * *

**Japanese**

Bijin – Beautiful One  
Chibi Ichi – Little One  
Chibi Karui – Little Light  
Chibi Ryu – Little Dragon  
Chikuso! – Shit/Fuck/All around general epithet of frustration  
Koishii – Beloved  
Koneko – Kitten  
Ryuu – Dragon  
Saiai – Beloved  
Sakura – Cherry Blossom  
Tsuyayaka – Beautiful

* * *

Giving one last furtive look down the hall, Seto breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that neither Amarin nor his brother had followed him. They were still in the rec room watching _The Lion King_.

_The fourth viewing for each of them,_ he marveled. It still amazed him that his nanny was almost more childlike than his little brother. Seto wasn't sure if that meant his brother was growing up too fast or if Amarin was just very young at heart.

_Probably both,_ he thought wryly, recalling that they were watching **her** copy of the Disney movie. And she'd said she owned almost all of them, including the new releases.

Shrugging off his idle thoughts, Seto slipped inside Amarin's room. He stopped short at the trio of colors that met his eyes. He hadn't been inside Amarin's room since a few weeks after her furniture had arrived and Mokuba had insisted they help her move it into place. 'It'll only take a few minutes,' he'd said, and he was right, it had. She'd had very little furniture to move. But it wasn't her furniture that surprised him.

A few days before her belongings had arrived she'd asked his permission to paint the walls, and since he really didn't care one way or the other what color they were, he'd agreed.

The walls were now a pale pink color. Her room had come with a dark green carpet, almost like forest moss, and it seemed even greener for the rose hue of the walls.

But even that wouldn't have startled him so much. No, it was the rest of her belongings, the things in those boxes that had been delivered, which were now scattered all over the large space. It was amazing the amount of…**stuff**…Amarin owned. Mokuba hadn't been kidding when he'd said she had a lot of stuffed animals and figurines.

_But it doesn't look cluttered at all,_ he noted, then acknowledged that, _Though that might have more to do with the fact that this room is a thousand square feet than how neat she is._

There were multicolored tapestries, pictures and photographs hanging on the walls, interposed with all sorts of exotic wall-hangings. The doorway to the closet was filled with an iridescent beaded curtain, and in the corner next to it was a wood-framed silkscreen painted with a beach vista at sunset. She'd pasted what looked like glow in the dark stars on the ceiling, and at first glance it appeared she'd actually followed the pattern of the constellations, though compressed to save space. _Looks like the Milky Way over in the corner opposite the closet,_ he noted absently.

In the center of that starred ceiling hung a giant white paper lantern shaped like a star; it had cutouts also shaped like stars marching down each of it's five points and rainbow colored light shone from each cutout. A large monochrome and silver dream catcher hung over her bed – and somehow she'd rigged a canopy over it, composed of rainbow-shaded gauze and ribbons – and things that resembled a strange cross between wind chimes and nosegays with a healthy dose of ribbons thrown in for good measure were scattered here and there across the rest of the ceiling.

The bed she'd owned back in California had been a futon of all things, and he noticed that she'd folded it down into a couch and moved it near the door, next to the closet. Peeking through the glittering, sparkling strings of beads, he saw she'd moved the dresser inside the closet, against the back wall. There was a tall hat rack off the side that was practically covered in scarves which attested to Amarin's love of knitting. He was pretty sure she'd also made at least one of the rugs on the floor and most of the blankets on the bed, and bed-turned-couch. The loveseat in the den was sporting a new afghan, that he **knew** she'd made, so it wasn't far off to think that her personal space would be full of things she'd made.

In contrast to the veritable wonderland she'd made of her ceiling, the wall opposite the bathroom was a study in…well, studying. She'd set up a sort of reading nook in the corner next to her bed, with a white pappasan chair and a black beanbag the only other big furniture in the room. Wall-to-wall bookshelves; all but four of them filled with books, most well-worn and much-read. Two held videotapes and DVDs, one held CDs and a small stereo system, and the last contained dozens of puzzles and what looked like a few board games. Above the middle three hung a full-sized American flag, which was also odd, since it looked like the type only family members of deceased servicemen received.

"Curiouser and curiouser," he murmured.

The expanse of wall between the closet and bathroom doors also held shelves; most of which supported figurines of all sizes and types, a few holding the smaller stuffed animals. Unlike the packed shelves, though, the middle of the floor space was almost empty; a few rugs were scattered here and there, but on the whole it was just one long expanse of clear carpet.

Realizing he'd spent almost ten minutes cataloging his nanny's belongings instead of proceeding with his intended purpose, Seto shook himself firmly out of his daze.

Spying her computer on the desk – which was situated in-between the figurine-holding shelves – he walked over and sat down in the desk chair. It was one of those hammock chairs, fuzzy and patterned in rainbow tie-dye. Thankfully, unlike her 'hippie sheik meets thrift store' decorating scheme, her computer was pretty high-tech, and not a dinosaur. It was a newer model of computer; not quite two years old, which still meant it was obsolete, but then computer technology upgraded so fast that it became obsolete in about three months. Still, it was a pretty impressive piece of hardware for someone who didn't have access to the latest technology.

"Well, let's see what you were working on last, hmm?" Seto said, smirking slightly as he booted up Amarin's computer and began snooping. His new nanny was working out perfectly, but you could never be too careful…and he was a firm believer in the saying 'If it seems too good to be true, it probably is.'

Especially with the way she'd managed to worm herself so easily into his and Mokuba's lives.

He wasn't surprised to find everything was labeled in English – it was an American computer after all – the keyboard even with the Roman alphabet. Luckily he was used to using them. Spying a folder named _Diary_, he double-clicked on it and found a list of Word documents ordered by date. Choosing the most recent, he opened it and started reading.

_**20 Reasons To Love Seto Kaiba**_

Seto choked. "What!?"

_1. He's five years older than Mokuba, acts like he's fifteen, and **still** takes the time to read him a bedtime story. Gotta love a guy like that._

Seto snorted. If that was so, then Yugi and all his friends should love him, since they **knew** he cared for Mokuba.

_Can I really come up with twenty reasons? I've only known him for eight months, which equals out to about one month considering he's so closed off. Sigh… Why did I decide to do this again?_

_Good question,_ Seto thought irritatedly. _Why did she?_

_Oh, right. Someone on the MakeBelieve lists posted a '20 Reasons Why We Love Lex Luthor' list and I thought it would be fun to come up with one for the billionaire in **my** life.  
_

_Awfully possessive,_ Seto thought with a trace of amusement.

_What was their number one? Oh, right: 'Not every guy can pull off wearing lavender silk shirts.' Right on that point. I bet Seto could – though he looks better in blue. Sigh…_

_Oh, well, following the clothes trend…_

_2. Not every guy can pull off that 80's glam-rock style. I mean, seriously, most men (well, most women, too, come to think of it) would look ridiculous in a sleeveless white trenchcoat. Seto just looks **hot**. And the black fingerless gloves and silver gauntlets just add to it._

_I think he looks better in that dark blue one, but that's just me._

Seto sighed. Why couldn't someone once just look past his looks and try to like who he **was**? He read farther down, hoping there was something redeeming to follow.

_Of course, if he didn't have that 'Don't fuck with me or I'll carve out your heart with a dull spoon and make you **like** it' aura around him, he wouldn't be nearly so sexy. He's so confident and sure of himself. That's the real attraction._

_I wonder if I could learn how to do that? No, you probably have to be a brooding artist to even attempt it._

_Speaking of brooding – I noticed he's been doing a lot of it lately. As far as I know there's nothing going on with Duel Monsters, and Mokuba's yearly checkup went perfectly – is his board of directors about to overthrow him again?_

Seto started as he realized that apparently Amarin actually paid attention to him and his life. _This is weird…I mean, I'm not sure even Mokuba realizes that I end up having to replace the board every few months, before they get ready to take over. And why would she care?_ He read on.

_I know how much his company means to him – it's like a security blanket. As long as he is CEO of KaibaCorp, he has enough money to fix everything. Or so he thinks. Sure, Seto can send Mokuba to the best schools, give him the best of everything – but does he know that Mokuba prefers playing Duel Monsters with his big brother to playing with all the state of the art computer programs around here? I hope so…_

_As for school, Mokuba told me the other day that he would rather go to public school. I'm divided on how I feel – on the one hand, I've been to both private and public school, and public school can be very lonely – so can private schools, for that matter – but then schools are different in Japan than America. And I'm not sure whether or not to mention this to Seto. For one thing, it might not be my place, and for another, I'm not sure whether this was told to me in confidence._

_Despite that, I think Seto **does** realize that money isn't everything – but the company has become his crutch; he's afraid not to have money. I suppose I can understand where he's coming from; when people kidnap your brother on a regular basis, I suppose worrying whether or not you have enough money for the ransom is a typical thing._

Seto shivered as he thought about what had happened when the original Big Five had teamed up with Pegasus. Thankfully, now that Yami had mind-crushed Pegasus into some semblance of sanity, and Yami Bakura had taken the magnate's Millennium Eye, he really didn't have to worry about him anymore. But the Big Five were still out there, and he wouldn't be able to rest easy until his situation with them was resolved.

He looked back at the computer screen, hoping for a lighter change of pace.

_Well, anyway, back to the list so I can lighten my mood._

_3. He's a very tolerant person. Not everyone would hire a male crossdresser as their maid, even if 'she' only comes twice a month. I like Jayce, I do, but most people would be weirded out by 'her'._

Why should he care if his maid wanted to dress as a woman? It only mattered to him that he/she did a good job. And he/she so far wasn't a security risk, which was more than he could say for the last eighteen others.

_4. He's very cool under pressure. Six different media personages have asked if the reason he doesn't date is because he's gay and he's managed to come up with a combined put-down/answer in the negative/no comment each time. _

_I wonder if he is gay? Or bi? It would be a crime to deny anyone the right to love him, and I know the concept of me having a chance with him is about as likely to happen as Michael Jackson hitting it big again, or the Devil becoming a televangelist._

Sighing again, Seto closed his eyes and wiped his face with his hands. Amarin was a wonderful nanny, but he really couldn't have her falling for him. He roughly pushed aside any thoughts that maybe **he** was falling for **her**, which was the real reason he had hacked into her computer to read her diary.

_I wonder, sometimes, though, if maybe that's the problem. Aside from Mokuba, and his late parents, I'm not sure anyone has ever even **liked** Seto, let alone loved him. And since he's spent most of his life keeping people at arm's length, I'm not sure he can recognize when people care for him. But how can I let him know I consider him a friend without outright saying it? He's better at the whole subtlety thing than I am._

_Sigh…_

_And what does it say about me, I wonder, that I consider one of the most closed-off men on the planet one of my best friends? And he is a man – for all that I'm **physically** older than him, he is **mentally** more mature than I'll ever be. He's seventeen going on thirty, and I'm nineteen going on fifteen. Just another factoid that separates us._

_Mokuba and Seto Kaiba – the only two friends I have here in Japan. And we aren't even really all that close…_

_I'm depressed again. Let's get to number five._

_5. He's very loyal. If he makes you a promise, he keeps it; and if he's your friend, you know it's for life._

_Maybe I'm assuming too much on the second half of that statement. Although I would like to think that even after my job ends he might consider me enough of a friend to keep in touch. I'd like to know what Mokuba does with his life…and Seto, too._

Seto frowned. The thought of Amarin leaving one day actually **hurt**. She'd only been here eight months, but had so quickly become a part of their lives…of his life. Was he actually starting to feel something for the girl? Oh, she was almost three years older than him, but still so young and innocent, barely a woman. And that was part of her charm; she was, simultaneously, worldly and knowledgeable, yet innocent and sweet. It was a very…confusing combination.

_I'm stumped for number six. What did that person use for Lex? Something along the lines of that scar on his lip being sexy and it making kissing interesting, I think. Why would a scar on someone's lip make kissing interesting?_

_Well, I guess if I had ever actually kissed someone other than my family, I might get that, but as it is…_

_She's never kissed anyone? She's nineteen years old. And if she's never kissed anyone, that must mean… She's a virgin? Well, I guess that's something else we have in common, _Seto thought, feeling less out of his depth than he had a minute before. Oh, sure, older women had been interested in him before – well, not so much **him** as what he could do for them – and it was always slightly nerve-wracking trying to put off someone with more experience than himself. He was done letting people use him for their own ends…but it didn't seem like that thought had even occurred to Amarin…

_It would probably be nice, though, to kiss him. He always puts 110 percent into everything he does; what would it be like to have all that attention focused on one kiss?_

Seto's face heated up as he thought about it. Outside of overzealous business executives or a few of his sectaries who'd propositioned him in hopes of better contracts, or a raise, respectively, he hadn't really given dating, romance, or girls all that much consideration. But the thought of kissing Amarin…like that…held quite a bit of appeal.

Angrily he shook himself out of his thoughts and focused back on the screen, scrolling down the page.

_Let's make that number six:_

_6. He devotes all his attention to whatever 'project' he's got going._

_Although I'm not always sure that's a good thing. I still remember when he fainted right after Battle City. I can't believe he was working so hard he forgot to **eat** for three days! But nothing can keep him down for long. Two weeks later he was up making cookies and flying kites – you would have never known it had happened._

Seto flushed again as he remembered how he'd collapsed in the living room, and only Mokuba's fast talking had kept him from a trip to the hospital.

Of course, Mokuba and Amarin wouldn't have been able to take care of him at home if he hadn't laid in a supply of IV nutrients, since this had happened many times before. He'd wanted to be prepared for the next time.

_I mean, I can understand being so busy you don't want to take time out to eat – I've done that often enough, but I only managed to hold off for a couple hours. Mokuba mentioned something once about him surviving on coffee for a week. I wonder if he's anorexic? No, that's an actual psychological disorder…_

_She **doesn't** think I have mental problems?_ Seto thought, bemused. _Then she's the only one other than Mokuba who does._

_Not to say that he doesn't **have** a psychological disorder. I'm **sure** there was something in my Abnormal Psych text about a literal 'workaholic.'_

_Spoke too soon._ Growling low under his breath, Seto seriously considered firing her just for this comment – conveniently forgetting he wasn't supposed to have hacked into his nanny's private journal to begin with.

_He works too much, I know he does. If he could find someone he trusted to delegate stuff to, maybe he'd actually be able to get a full night's sleep once in a while. But I don't think he trusts anyone but Mokuba…completely, anyway. I think he kinda trusts me – at least, to a certain extent. He trusts me not to have a hidden agenda involving kidnapping, killing, or blackmailing him or his brother, anyway._

Seto snorted. She was right. And how was it that he knew Amarin well enough to tell that she'd written that last sentence with a sarcastic, wry bent?

_I wish sometimes I had the inclination to want to learn more about his company. I mean, when Mokuba's in school, I don't technically have anything to do, job-wise, so if I could help him out with delivering files or something – but then, anyone could do that, which is the problem. I don't know enough about business to actually do the stuff he does, **for** him. I don't really **want** to know that kind of stuff about KaibaCorp, either, I just want to help Seto out._

Seto blinked. That was pretty much the explanation Mokuba had given him for why he helped out as Vice President; aside from creating and testing new gaming devices, Mokuba really wasn't all that interested in the company, and only got involved because it helped him out.

_He would probably get suspicious if I offered, though. Sigh… I wonder if he'll ever be able to tear down those walls he's erected around himself? Mokuba has the only key, and I don't think Seto plans on making any copies.  
__  
It's too bad. I think I'd like to find out what the **real** Seto Ai is like._

Seto blinked. She knew his **real** last name?

_Speaking of which…  
__  
7. His name means 'love'. You can't **buy** a better omen. Of course, Kaiba means 'seahorse' which is also a kind of omen – the only species where the male is the one who gets pregnant and carries the babies…_

He reeled back, eyes wide. _WHAT?!_

_Alternately, Seto means 'turmoil' which doesn't really fit him. It's defined as 'violent disturbance' and though Seto can be violent, it's never without provocation. And he is always in control. I do think, though, that maybe his emotions are in turmoil._

_Of course, he's a teenager, and every teenager has a hard time dealing with their feelings – even me._

_Oh, really?_ Amarin was the one of the most serene people he'd ever met. She wasn't always calm, exactly – he'd seen her so excited she outshone Mokuba when he'd promised to spend the whole day with him – but she always seemed at peace.

Of course, who knew better than he how easy it was to hide your true feelings from the world?

'_Seahorse' fits him much better; I mean, there's a Japanese legend about seahorses being baby dragons – which just need a couple thousand years to grow up! I'm afraid, though, that the connotations the name Kaiba has for him probably keep him from seeing that._ _He is very maternal, really. You see him with Mokuba and you can't deny it. I mean, I'm not really a nanny, more of an 'au pair' – mother's helper. I never was able to figure out what the French was for 'brother's helper', but the original works just fine, considering Seto practically raised Mokuba. _

_He'd make a wonderful father; but I'm not sure he'd ever let anyone close enough to find that out for sure. I think if he hadn't grown up with Mokuba, Seto never would have let himself love him. Even if he did someday get involved in a relationship, I don't think he'd consider kids because he'd be too scared that something would happen to them. I know how much he worries about Mokuba; I'm not sure he'd be willing to put himself through that for someone else._

Sighing, Seto closed his eyes, trying to block out the words. They were true; he never let anyone close, and it was because he was afraid. But everything and everyone good in his life had either been taken away from him, or used against him. It would be foolish to willingly add another weakness for people to prey on.

_I find it interesting, though, that he's still listed in so many databases under his biological parents' last name. I mean, I'm not even sure what his legal name is anymore – from what I've heard of Gozabura Kaiba, the man/snake/all-around jerk wouldn't have adopted Seto and Mokuba without making them change their names, but if that's so, then why is his name still listed officially as Seto Ai? Wouldn't that make it hard for him to keep hold of KaibaCorp? I mean, if Seto Kaiba was listed on all their paperwork, but his legal name is Seto Ai, that would mean that technically, he doesn't own the company._

His eyes widening almost comically, Seto thought, _Chikuso! Is she right? I never even thought of that. _Mentally making a note to check it out – and get the paperwork corrected so no one could try and wrestle the company from him by using a legality – he went back to reading.

_Hmm, names. That gives me another one._

_8. He actually offered to let me call him Seto, even though it made him uncomfortable._

_Which, of course, is the reason I keep calling him Mr. Kaiba – whenever I actually use his name. I know we're not nearly close enough for me to call him Seto. As far as I can tell, Mokuba is the only one who calls him by his given name – and he doesn't use it very often. It's always 'ani'. Big brother. Though for some reason he always adds -sama to the end. That suffix literally means 'Lord God and Master', which is why you add it to the end of Kami – God. I asked him once why he used that instead of -kun or -chan, and he said 'Kami looks after us, watches over us and protects us, and is always there for us. Seto has been doing that for me my whole life and I see no reason why I shouldn't call him that.'_

A lump formed in his throat and Seto swallowed hard to remove it. _Mokuba…_

_I didn't have the heart to disagree with him. Makes perfect sense to me._

_I wonder what Seto would say if he knew Mokuba sometimes slips and calls me ane, big sister?_

His eyes softened and Seto smiled slightly. _So, he thinks of her as family, too, huh?_

That traitorous little voice in the back of his head whispered, **_But I bet he's never pictured her naked._**

"Shut up," he mumbled, and went back to reading.

_I've never had siblings – well, Kyle, and his family, but that's different – never wanted them, really, but Mokuba's…different. He worms his way into your heart without even trying._

Seto smile. _She's got that right._

_Just like Seto._

His eyes bugged out. **_What?!_**

_I swear, I think Seto has actually tried to put distance between us, make sure we don't become close, but he's **still** managed to become one of the people I care most about. Maybe it's because of the name thing – he calls me Amarin. I work for him, so you would expect that he'd insist on calling me Miss Marks, but…_

_I wonder what it would take to get him to call me Ami? It's what most people end up giving me as a nickname._

_Nicknames…that's a good one._

_9. Both he and his brother invite nicknames; they just have that kind of aura around them._

_I've lost count of the ones I've given Mokuba: Chibi Ichi, Mokie, Kiddo, Chibi Ryuu, Fuzzball…but I have so many more for Seto._

Seto frowned. "What nicknames does she have for me? She's never used any of them…"

'_Blue Eyes' is one, and it's not because of his dragons – though Ryuu is another – it's because of his eyes. You can see everything in his eyes: his hopes, his dreams, everything he's feeling…they're so expressive. _

_Mokuba sometimes calls me Bi-hana, beautiful blossom, or Bi-bara, beautiful rose. I guess because I like making flower arrangements and I spend a lot of time helping Mr. Sorano with the garden. Though Bi-bara got added to his lexicon right after he found out my middle name **was** Rose._

_I wonder if Seto would have any nicknames for me? _

Seto smiled softly. _I can think of dozens: 'Ryn, Mari, Koneko, Chibi Karui,_ _Bijin, Sakura-san, Miw-sher…_

He purposely pushed back the ones he wanted to use, but never would: Mery-i,TenshiTsuyayaka, Aimee, Koishii…Saiai…Biaw…

_What to do for number ten? Let me look back over the others to make sure I don't repeat myself…_

_Ack!_

_I'm reading back over my comments on number four and am shocked. 'It would be a crime to deny anyone the right to love him'? Am I saying that **I** love him?_

Seto sat up straighter in his chair. _Yes, is she?_

_I guess, maybe…I am. He's closer to me than most of my own family – and I already consider Mokuba family. My otouto; my little brother. Would it really be so much more to add Seto to my little chosen family? He'd never agree, of course, **if** he ever found out. And I don't really want him to be my **brother** anyway…_

Seto blinked, caught between disappointment and relief. He wasn't sure why he would feel disappointed, but he did.

_Seto is…the most interesting, complex man I have ever met. And he is a man, not a boy. Sure, he's seventeen, almost three years younger than me…but that's only biologically. Mentally he's around twice my age, and emotionally…I'm not sure he ever got past adolescence. That stage when you are entirely convinced that you don't fit into the world around you and never will. He's doing pretty much the same thing I did when I went through puberty – saying 'Fuck off!' to everyone around him while he tries to figure out his place in the world. Unfortunately, while I had Kyle, who was going through the same thing, he didn't have anyone. His emotional growth got stunted and I think he got stuck there, in limbo. I'm not sure he'd ever be willing to leave. It's safe there, for him; he knows how to act and react. But being a perpetual emotional teenager is not all it's cracked up to be._

_She's right, it isn't,_ Seto thought, and without a hint of rancor. He wasn't even really upset about her assessment of him – which was essentially correct.

_He's not letting himself grow. I look at him, tall, strong, confident, running his business like a pro, and I see shadows of the man he could be. A man who also enjoys his life, instead of worrying about what's around the next corner. Sure, hope for the best, plan for the worst, but he spends **all** his time planning, and none of his time hoping. Baz Luhrmman said it best: 'Worrying is about as effective as trying to solve algebra by chewing bubblegum.'_

_Seto is such a great man – but he could be even greater. He needs someone to love other than Mokuba, someone who loves **him**, who would be there for him at the end of the day. _

Seto snorted. _Like you?_ he thought cynically.

_Someone who'd be willing to listen to him complain about his work._

That little voice was back. **_Like she does?_** it whispered.

_Someone who would understand that he's an emotional mess and has trouble expressing his feelings. I think I've only ever heard him tell Mokuba he loves him half a dozen times. And each time he does, he gets this look on his face like he's afraid some dark force – or maybe the ghost of Gozabura Kaiba, the creep – will hear and come take away the one thing in his life that really matters._

Tears pricked his eyes and he turned away. Amarin saw a little **too** much. It was true – when Gozabura was alive, he had made sure never to give any indication to his 'father' that he still cared about his brother. Gozabura Kaiba had wanted to completely tear the brothers apart, and make Seto into his own little puppet, willing to do whatever he wanted. Seto had gotten used to very rarely expressing his feelings around Mokuba in those five years, and old habits were hard to break…however much he might want to.

_I wish it could be me; that I could be the one he grows to love. But I'm just fooling myself – he needs someone more than me. More confident, more intelligent, more…just **more**._

_I would give anything if it **could** be me, though._

Suddenly deciding that this had been a bad idea and he should quit while he was ahead, Seto closed down all the programs and turned the computer off, making sure to leave it exactly as he'd found it.

As he exited her room and stood shakily in the hallway, tears falling down his cheeks, all he could think was, _You don't need to be more; you're already perfect._

He swore he could hear that little voice laughing in gleeful triumph all the way to his office.


	10. Kurisumasu Kitai

**Kurisumasu Kitai**

* * *

**Japanese**

Kurisumasu Kitai – Christmas Hope

* * *

Normally I didn't like the Christmas season all that much. Too much hustle and bustle for the one day of the year when people were supposed to be nice to each other, only to be so worn out by the preparations that they snapped at everyone.

But with Amarin in our house now, I was actually enjoying December. Maybe it was because the decorations she put up were mostly made by herself and Mokuba, and weren't overwhelming. Maybe it was because she liked to celebrate the twelve days of Christmas by making as many different kinds of cookies as possible.

Maybe it was just because Amarin was so cheerful, and it was hard not to be warmed by her very presence.

"Scrambled eggs over rice?" I asked when I cam downstairs for breakfast. I was surprised; while Amarin was equal opportunity on ethnic dishes for dinner (and lunch, I assumed, though we hardly ever ate that meal together) she normally fixed some Western dish for breakfast. I don't think French Toast counts as International.

"I thought you might like something different," she said. "Plus, Mokuba said it was your favorite breakfast. And we have over three pounds of rice in the pantry that's going to pass its expiration date in less than six weeks."

Involuntarily, my lips quirked up. That was so like her – to sidetrack me with a logical explanation instead of just admitting she wanted to do something nice for me. I knew it wasn't because she was uncomfortable admitting something like that; it was because I was uncomfortable with her doing it for that sole reason. "Should I be expecting Chinese fried rice for dinner every night this week?" I asked dryly.

She chuckled. "No, just tomorrow night. Tonight I'm making Spanish rice; Wednesday it's rice pilaf, and hopefully after that we'll have used it all up. If not, Thursday I'll make curry rice."

"Normally I'd think you were underestimating, but with Mokuba's appetite the way it's been lately, I'm not so sure you aren't right," I admitted.

Shrugging, she picked up her own bowl of rice and eggs and sat down across from me. "He's a growing boy; he needs his sustenance." She picked up the salt and butter and proceeded to turn her relatively healthy breakfast into something resembling a heart attack in a bowl.

Another smile stole over my lips and I quickly buried it in my breakfast.

* * *

When I came home that afternoon it was to discover both Mokuba and Amarin in the den. Mokuba had his homework out, but was more focused on watching Amarin.

"You seem to be making an awful lot of scarves lately," Mokuba observed, watching as Amarin finished adding fringe to a wool scarf in shades of green.

Amarin shrugged as reached for a ball of blue yarn out of the tote bag at her feet. "It's nearing Christmastime."

"What's that have to do with anything?" Mokuba asked, clearly perplexed.

"Every year I give people something I knitted for Christmas. It's almost always a scarf," Amarin explained, casting on her stitches to start yet another scarf.

"Why?" I was curious about this, too, and moved closer to continue my eavesdropping.

"It's sort of a tradition. Ever since my Great Aunt Madison Rose, or as I called her, Grandma Rose, taught me to knit when I was five, I knit nearly all my Christmas presents." She laughed softly and pause in her knitting. "I remember how it all started – I'd just finished my very first knitting project, a scarf and said, 'That was fun; I want to make another one,' and Grandma Rose told me that was fine but how many scarves did I need? Then I said, 'Well…I'll make them for other people then. Christmas is coming up, isn't it?' and that's how the tradition started." She took up her needles again and soon had the first row done.

"Do…do you have any other Christmas traditions?" Mokuba asked earnestly.

Giving him a sideways look, she said, "Sure, quite a few, actually. But most of them I won't be able to do this year." She smiled a tad wistfully.

"Why not?"

"Normally my friend Kyle and I, and his family would go out caroling on the Saturday before Christmas," she revealed. "And since we were twelve we'd volunteer as Elves together down at the Homeless Shelter for their Christmas party. I won't be able to do that this year since I'm not in America."

"Oh." Mokuba fell silent for a moment, and then his face furled in a frown. "Is that all you do on Christmas?" He seemed to be asking about the holiday in general, not her personal experiences, and this confused Amarin.

I knew why he was doing it, though; we Kaibas don't have any Christmas traditions, and my little brother wanted to start some, or maybe even join in on hers.

"People do lots of things around Christmas," she told him. "Bake cookies, put up a tree and decorate it, go shopping for presents and wrap them, send Christmas cards, give and attend parties, hang out with friends since you're off from school for two weeks…"

Her explanation seemed to have only made Mokuba more morose. "Seto and I have never done any of that."

I have never been good in emotional situations, but I felt I should go out there and try and cheer my brother up. Luckily I didn't need to; Amarin had him well in hand.

"It's never too soon to start," she told him, then considered for a moment. "I think I've made more than enough cookies, but there's no such thing as too many. We can send out Christmas cards after dinner, once you've finished your homework," she added pointedly. "And maybe, if Seto is free, this Saturday why don't we all go out and get a tree?"

Mokuba was smiling again, and actually, so was I. "Yeah, that sounds great."

* * *

It was great. Amarin refused to let us get a live tree, claiming that it was 'mean to the tree' and also she didn't want to clean up the needles.

The plastic one was more expensive but we'd be able to use it every year. Then, of course, we had to buy a tree stand, a star for the top, lights and ornaments. Amarin and Mokuba spent over half an hour picking out ornaments and baubles to hang on the tree.

Mokuba didn't even need to prompt me to get some of my own: a miniature Blue Eyes White Dragon, a silver star, a chubby snowman with a computer for a stomach. Those were the three that caught my eye, and the pleased grin on Mokuba's face was definitely worth it.

While Amarin was in the grocery store getting the ingredients for fudge, Mokuba dragged me to the toy store next door, he surprised me by saying that we needed to get Amarin presents.

"Presents, plural?" I raised an eyebrow in question.

Mokuba nodded, giving me a look that questioned my high intelligence. "One from me, and one from you, big brother."

The 'Duh' resounded silently in my head.

"What kind of present?" However much I loved Mokuba, sometimes I felt like I didn't know him at all. Half the time I got him presents he liked, and the other half, while he didn't hate them, he was obviously confused as to why I thought he'd like them.

Spying something over in a corner, Mokuba scampered over to the display of plush Duel Monsters. "I remember she said the Kuriboh was cute," he said, pointing at one of the brown and green monsters out of his reach.

I obliged him by getting it down for him. Coincidentally, another stuffed toy fell down on top of me after I removed it.

It was a Blue Eyes White Dragon. Before I even knew it, I was cuddling it in my arms. I stopped immediately once I realized what I was doing, but the damage was done.

I was much too old for stuffed toys, but not for being teased by my younger brother. Thankfully, all he said was, "I think she'd like that."

We paid, left and got back to the grocery store just minutes before Amarin finished checking out. Mokuba was the opposite of subtle trying to keep Amarin from looking in our bag, but I could tell she was mostly doing it to tease him.

When we got home, Mokuba and Amarin went off to make fudge. I had work to do, but promised I'd help them with the last batch.

The last batch ended up being made just so the two of them could use up all the ingredients, which is why it had nuts, toffee bits, chocolate chips, **and** M&Ms in them. There was barely enough room in the pan for the actual fudge part once we got the 'toppings' in there.

They were **really** good, though.

* * *

Christmas morning dawned much too early. Actually, it didn't even dawn; I was awoken by the sound of Mokuba knocking frantically on my door when it was still dark outside. I opened it and stared at the retreating form of my whirlwind of a brother through bleary eyes. When I looked away I came face to face with Amarin.

She was wearing pink plaid flannel pajama pants and a baggy pink sweatshirt. Also, fuzzy rainbow colored slippers. Her hair was in two long braids, but a lot of it had escape and waved wildly around her face.

She didn't notice my perusal of her attire because she was too busy yawning wider than the Grand Canyon. "Is it actually morning?" she asked sleepily.

"A bit past for," I confirmed.

"Ah," she replied, and then shuffled sleepily down the hallway after Mokuba.

Most of the presents under the tree were for Mokuba. There were a few odd ones from Amarin's relatives for her, and a couple gifts from various business associates for me.

Mokuba finished unwrapping his fourteen presents before I finished my four and Amarin her seven. Most of Mokuba's were various computer games that he'd mentioned to Amarin, plus a red and blue striped scarf. There were also few Duel Monsters card booster packs, a remote controlled car and a skateboard from me. By his pleased grin, it looked like I'd done good this year.

Amarin received some books, romance novels by the look of them, a Celine Dion CD, some sparkly and brightly colored – and very expensive, Amarin told me – yarn and a pair of wooden knitting needles, a pink flannel nightshirt with cats on it, and of course, mine and Mokuba's stuffed toys.

She was eighteen years old; it was almost ludicrous how…**adorable** she looked cuddling them like kittens or babies.

It was almost equally as ludicrous that my pro forma gifts were actually usable. One was from the American Macintosh representative, a beta version of their newest iPhone. The other was selective of gourmet coffees complete with travel mug. Mokuba had gotten me a dayplanner with a Blue Eyes White Dragon on the front. I already had one – without the Dual Monster motif – but the note include explained. _I know you already have one of these, but that's for work. Use this one to make some time to spend with us. You know, doing things that are fun._

There was a drawing of a cheeky little chibi with a smile on its overlarge face as a signature.

Amarin's gift was a surprise, though it shouldn't have been. A navy blue scarf – the same blue I'd seen her using the day I eavesdropped on her and Mokuba – with my initials embroidered on both ends. Classy enough that I could wear it to work, but not so stylish that I couldn't wear it everyday.

"Oh!" Amarin exclaimed. She crawled underneath the tree, and I flushed as I realized that her shirt had ridden up, exposing parts of her I shouldn't be staring at.

Mostly because I **wanted** to stare.

She crawled back out a few seconds later, thankfully. There was an envelope in her hand, and when she said, "It's for you, Kaiba-san," I must admit I was surprised.

Not because there was something else for me, but because I didn't recall that envelope being there the night before. Amarin obviously hadn't put it there, and Mokuba, always an open, if not clear, book to me, didn't know anything about it either.

When I opened it, however, it all made sense.

_Happy Kurisumasu, Seto,_

_Since this a time for family and friends, we wanted to wish you well._

_Because no matter how much you might dislike it, we consider you our friend._

_Yugi & Yami (and all our friends)_

"What makes you think I don't appreciate your friendship, Moto?" I muttered under my breath. _Just because I don't show it doesn't mean I don't feel it,_ I added silently, my eyes cutting across the room to where Amarin and Mokuba were laughing over the contents of their stockings. She looked up and caught my eye, smiling at me.

_No, it doesn't._

I couldn't help but smile back.


	11. Where The Heart Is

**Where The Heart Is**

* * *

"I'm home!"

Mokuba smiled and jumped up from his bedroom floor where he'd been doing his homework, rushing out into the hall to meet his brother. Seto was in the kitchen, and Mokuba skidded slightly on the linoleum floor in his socked feet.

"Ani-sama!" he exclaimed, throwing his arms around his brother's waist, his grin growing wider when he realized his brother hadn't flinched at the contact. "Why are you home so early?"

"Why, Mokie, aren't you pleased to see me?" Seto said in mock-disappointment. At the kitchen counter, Amarin just smirked and shook her head at the brothers' antics.

"Of course I am, ani-sama, it's just…it's only four thirty."

Seto shrugged and started going through the mail (which he had presumably brought in from outside) lying on the table. "I didn't have anything to today that couldn't be put off until tomorrow, or done here, so I thought I'd come home early."

"He brought Chinese takeout," Amarin interjected, gesturing at steaming Styrofoam containers crowding the kitchen island. "It's a little early for dinner, but I'm kinda hungry, do you want to eat now?"

"Sure!" Mokuba chirped, heading into the kitchen to grab plates, chopsticks, and forks (because eat fried rice with chopsticks was an extremely frustrating enterprise).

As Mokuba was setting the table, Seto held up a large, plain brown paper-wrapped package and said, "Amarin, this is addressed to you."

She blinked. "It is?" Walking around the island, she accepted the package from Seto's outstretched hand and smiled as she read the sender's address. "Oh, it's from my best friend, Kyle. I should've known this would show up soon, but summer days are so lazy I guess I wasn't really keeping track of the date."

Mokuba looked at her curiously, and said, "What does the date have to do with your friend sending you a package?"

She shrugged and began setting out the containers of food on the table. "Oh, it's my birthday in a few weeks."

Seto looked at her askance, but said nothing. Mokuba, however, look surprised. "It is?" he asked.

She nodded. "Mm-hm. June twenty-first."

"How old are you going to be?" Mokuba asked.

Amarin chuckled. "Don't you know you're not supposed to ask a woman her age, Kiddo?" she asked playfully.

Mokuba snorted. "Oh, please."

She shook her head. "I'm gonna be nineteen," she told him. Grabbing a set of chopsticks and a fork, she sat down at the table.

Seto took a seat across from here, while Mokuba sat down on the end of the table, between them. After they'd all ladled their plates full of food, and had a chance to take a few bites, Mokuba said, "So, what kind of present do you want for your birthday?"

Looking at him in bewilderment, Amarin said, "Ano…you don't really need to get me anything. I don't **need** anything anyway."

"You don't?"

She shrugged. "I have a good job, plenty of money in the bank, a nice place to live for however long said job lasts…I'm good."

His face scrunched up in thought, Mokuba finally asked, "Well, then, what do you **want**?"

Laughing, Amarin said to Seto, "Persistent little bugger, isn't he?"

Seto gave her a small, almost miniscule smile. "He is when he wants something."

Amarin sighed and made a show of giving Mokuba's question some thought. Finally she said, "How about you get a new stuffed animal for my collection? I can never have too many."

"You have a stuffed animal collection?" Seto asked, slightly taken aback.

Mokuba nodded energetically. "Yeah, it's **huge**! She has two entire bookshelves filled with them, and larger ones on the floor, and smaller ones scattered all over the place…"

Amarin chuckled, blushing at the scrutiny she was receiving from the elder Kaiba. "I don't have **that** many," she defended herself. "It's just that most of my older relatives don't bother to keep track of how old I am. They've been sending the same kinds of presents ever since I was a baby; every birthday and Christmas, they give me a new stuffed animal. And I ended up with a lot of them."

"Mostly cats," Mokuba noted.

Amarin shrugged and bit into her fried dumpling. After chewing and swallowing, she said, "Well, they're my favorite animal, my relatives know that, and it's easy to find them in stores."

"But I noticed you had an entire shelf full of dragons," Mokuba said nonchalantly. Seto looked at her with interest, but Amarin was too busy eating to notice.

"Yes, I do. I really like mythical creatures: dragons, unicorns, griffins, wyverns… It's hard to find stuffed dragons, though," she said sadly, twirling some lo mein on her fork. "Much easier to find statues of them."

"And how many of **those** do you have?" Mokuba asked shrewdly. "I think you have two entire bookshelves of miniature figurines."

She blushed slightly. "The relatives that bother to keep track of my age give me figurines. So, there, you have two gift ideas. But I repeat, you really don't need to get me anything."

Mokuba smiled widely. "Ah, I may not **need** to get you anything for your birthday…but I **want** to."

She chuckled lightly, shaking her head and giving in. "All right, all right. Do what you will, Chibi Ichi, I won't try and stop you." With those words, she went back to eating her dinner.

Seto was left to wonder if Mokuba would try to convince him that **he** needed to get her something for her birthday…and exactly how hard that would be, since he wasn't entirely opposed to the idea.

* * *

As it turned out, Mokuba took a rather different approach than Seto thought he would – his little brother simply side-stepped the whole 'convincing' part and just asked Seto to take him shopping for Amarin's present.

And after dragging Seto into a mid-sized curio shop, Mokuba proceeded to look at all the statues, determined to find 'the perfect one, ani-sama.' Finally he narrowed his choice down to two small statues: one a snowglobe with a white dragon with rainbow-feathered wings, half-sitting, half-lying on top of a rock; the other was a paperweight, an ebony statue of an Egyptian Mau, complete in regal garb with a gold collar and headdress, her tail wrapped around her paws.

"I just can't decide," Mokuba said sadly, though there was a calculating glint in his eyes. "They're both perfect."

Inwardly smirking, Seto thought, _I know where this is going._ He gave a long-suffering sigh, gaining his brother's attention. To Mokuba he said, "Why don't you get her the cat, and **I'll** get her the dragon, Mokie?" He gave his little brother a look, letting him know that he'd been found out.

Aside from a slight pinkening of his cheeks, Mokuba didn't let on that's he knew he'd been busted. "That would be great, Seto!"

So the two little figures were bought and paid for, and when they got home Mokuba wrapped them up and stuck them in his closet to wait for Amarin's birthday.

* * *

In the following weeks, more packages and letters arrived with Amarin's name on them. Not all of them came from California, either; some were from Texas, some were from Arizona, one was even postmarked Bangkok.

"My Aunt Esther," she explained at Mokuba's questioning look. "She writes travel guides, and has to travel all over the world to do it. Last year she sent me my present from Australia; the year before from London."

"Sounds like a fun job," Mokuba said.

Amarin made noises of agreement as she arranged the parcels and letters she'd received into some semblance of a neat pile in her room. "Yeah, it would be nice to see all those different places," she agreed. "But all that traveling would wear on a person after awhile, I should think."

"Yeah, I guess you have a point." Mokuba nodded and handed her another package.

* * *

By the time June twenty-first rolled around, Amarin had quite a nice little hoard of gifts. She excused it by saying, "I don't normally get even half this many, but they're probably the equivalent of care packages, since I'm in another country."

"Care packages? Why?" Mokuba asked, trying to fit two cardboard pieces together and failing. They were doing a puzzle together, one of the sun setting over the ocean.

She shrugged. "To keep me from becoming homesick, I guess. Which is silly, really."

He raised a speculative eyebrow. "It is?"

She added another piece to the puzzle they were doing, and said, almost absentmindedly, "Well, home is where the heart is, and while most of my friends and family are back in California, I have you guys here, right?" She grinned at him. "So how can I be lonely?"

A slow smile spreading across his face, Mokuba agreed, "Right."

In response to Mokuba's question about birthday cake, she'd made one – a chocolate cheesecake which looked simply sinful. She'd even picked up a box of candles to grace it, though she had a hard time keeping Mokuba from sneaking tastes of the cake.

* * *

Her birthday really wasn't all that different from any other day. It started out as always: she got up, got dressed, turned on the coffeemaker for Seto, put the teakettle on for herself, and made breakfast for all three of them.

It was a Monday, which normally meant that Seto would go into the office earlier than usual, but now that Battle City was over, he'd been less busy. He entered the kitchen just as she was getting ready to scramble the eggs.

"Good morning."

"Morning," she returned. "Have time for breakfast?"

"Afraid not," he said, flipping through a folder he was carrying. "I'm going to be in meetings all day," he revealed.

"Ah. Well, have a…satisfactory time," she finished after searching for a moment for a fitting word.

One eyebrow quirked up. "Not a **good** time?"

"Well, I didn't think meetings were all that fun," she told him.

Giving her a look, he said dryly, "They aren't." He grabbed his usual cup of coffee, and accepting her offer of a muffin with a quiet, "Thanks," headed out the door.

* * *

Aside from the fact that they had cake for dessert, dinner was pretty much SOP as well. Mokuba playfully sang the birthday song to her and told her to make a wish on the candles, but all in all there wasn't that much fuss made, which was pretty much the way she wanted it.

The cake was a success, and judging by the way both of the Kaibas scraped their plates clean of even the smallest morsel left, she was probably going to be badgered by a raven-haired whirlwind into making it, and often.

Once they were finished with the cake, Mokuba ran to collect her two gifts. When she opened them – and she just **knew** Mokuba had chosen both of them, and wrapped them, but since it really was the thought that counted, it didn't make a difference – she spent several minutes examining them from every angle, thanking them both profusely.

"You really didn't need to get me anything," she repeated her words from several weeks ago.

"Why not? You got me something for my birthday," Mokuba said. "Are you not planning on doing that again?" He pouted.

Amarin looked taken aback. "Of course I am. Both of you," she said, not noticing that her words caused Seto to start.

"Well, then, it's only fair that we got you something, now isn't it?" he said reasonably.

She just smiled and shook her head. "They're beautiful," she said for the second time, carefully placing them back in their boxes. "Thank you. Thank you both," she said one final time.

"You're welcome," Mokuba said, smiling widely.

"Doitashi mashite," Seto mumbled gruffly.

Once she'd put her presents away, it was only a matter of clearing up the dinner dishes and disposing of the used wrapping paper.

As she got ready for bed that night – after opening all her other presents, which, while wonderful, didn't mean quite as much to her as the ones from the Kaibas – she reflected that, while it had been one of the more quiet birthdays she'd had, sometimes the simple things were the best. She had originally been hesitant about moving so far from home, but what she'd told Mokuba was true. Home was where the heart was. And her heart had latched firmly onto both of the Kaibas.


	12. Kisses Can Mean A Thousand Things

**Kisses Can Mean A Thousand Things**

* * *

**Japanese**

Taiyuu – Courage

* * *

I kissed him! And he kissed me back…

Admittedly, I think it was more reflex than anything else, but when he realized what we were doing…what **he** was doing…he didn't push me away. He just pulled back slightly and looked at me, this expression on his face like he couldn't believe I wanted this, and then dove back in, as if he was afraid I'd come to my senses soon and push him away.

Silly Seto. I've wanted this for…Fates, I don't know how long.

It was so weird and sweet, how it happened. I kept quoting one of my favorite movie parodies of all time, _Spaceballs_, and he finally asked me what the hell I was talking about. I told him about the movie, and he expressed interest in wanting to see it, so I dug out my old VHS tape and plopped us both down in front of the big screen TV in the rec room. Mokuba was on an overnight field trip with his class, so we had the whole place to ourselves.

I've never seen Seto laugh so much – and one of these days I'm going to have to find out who Joey Wheeler is, and why Seto kept comparing him to Barf, the half-dog alien – and it's been awhile since I've laughed so much, too.

When the credits were rolling, we somehow ended up in a popcorn fight, and while trying to stuff a handful of kernels down the back of his shirt, I lost my balance and fell over onto him. I was only wearing my khaki shorts and a strappy tank, my blouse having been discarded early in the evening. Seto's shirt was halfway unbuttoned, and his rock-hard chest was just peeking out in tantalizing glimpses. Our proximity made me suddenly aware of how I'd gone without a bra today, thinking my tank would be enough. He was so sexy, so beautiful laughing like that, I'd never seen him so happy…I guess I just couldn't resist.

So I leaned down and pressed my lips to his…and **Fates** he can kiss. I was right about him putting 110 of his focus into everything.

We must've lain there for over twenty minutes, just kissing, and occasionally touching almost chastely. His shirt never came off; neither did mine. By the time we broke apart, we were both flushed and panting. I was afraid to find out if Seto was as turned on as I was, but even his ice-cold façade would have melted at such a fiery blaze.

Once we stopped, though… He just looked at me, so vulnerable and open, and said, "I…I don't understand what this means." He was looking to me for answers, but I couldn't give them to him.

"I'm not sure, either. I only know that I like you, Seto. A lot." I'd never dared to call him by his first name before; it was always Mr. Kaiba. But I figured since he'd had his tongue down my throat for a good half-hour, I was allowed.

I felt my cheeks heat and scooted a bit to the side so I was no longer in his lap.

Seto blushed a bit, too, and scooted backward so our hips were a few inches apart. "Ami…I…" He shook his head and huffed. "I don't know…how to have a…**relationship**…like this."

"Neither do I," I told him, inwardly reeling – and more than a bit thrilled – that he'd called me Ami. "I never even…kissed anyone before today." I'd just made out with him for upwards of thirty minutes and yet I couldn't stop blushing.

But he went on as if he hadn't heard – though I knew he had, he would just process it later. "And even if we could get past that… I'm not sure you realize what being with me would mean. I am so much in the public eye; I could never let anyone see us together unless I wanted what little privacy I have left to go out the window."

I'd had thoughts about him before, and I'd thought about how much of a celebrity he is. It did bother me a bit that the only way we could go out would be if Mokuba was with us, but if we ever got really serious I knew we could take the heat of a public relationship. "I don't really have a problem with keeping things quiet," I admitted. "I mean, I don't know anybody in Japan aside from Jayce and the gardener, Mr. Sarano. And I value my privacy, as well. Besides…I'd kinda like to figure out what's going on with us before we tell anyone."

"Like Mokuba?" he asked, piercing gaze never wavering.

"Exactly." I wasn't sure if it was what he wanted to hear or not, but he has reasons for how he feels, and I have mine. "I mean, we can't exactly tell him we're together, and then a week later figure out we made a mistake, can we?" I think Mokuba would like for us to get together, and I care about him enough, **love** him enough, not to want to get his hopes up only to dash them. "I don't think we **have** made a mistake, but this whole thing is…incredibly confusing and I'd like a little time to figure it out first," I explained.

"Yeah…time. I could use some of that, too…" He took a deep breath and looked away as he admitted, "I've never kissed anyone before today, either."

I wasn't all that surprised – I mean, he's sixteen, almost seventeen. I'm a little over two years older than him, and in pretty much the same boat.

"It's nothing to be ashamed of, you know." He looked at me as if he knew what I was about to say, but I had spent my whole life being unpredictable; why stop then? "That we're confused about we feel, I mean."

He started and then nodded slowly. "I know…it's just…I don't even really have anything to compare this to. Mokuba's the only person I've ever cared about – I don't know how to care any other way."

"Some people say romantic love is basically friendship combined with lust." I shrugged. "I'm not so sure there isn't more to it, but we have both of those – so that must mean something."

"And you're willing to have a relationship with me, knowing that I don't know if I'll ever be able to…feel that?" He looked like I'd just told him I was willing to bet my life savings on me beating him in a duel – which I would have a snowball's chance in Hell of winning, and that's pretty much the point.

My ability to empathize with people is legendary in my family, but even a blind woman could have seen how worried Seto was. "Seto…you may be convinced that you will never be able to love anyone but Mokuba. But I think that if you want something enough, you can make it happen." He still looked worried, so I picked up his right hand in my left and squeezed it. "And if you didn't want to fall in love, you wouldn't be worried about it."

He let out a shuddering breath, and I wondered if he was close to crying. Emotional upheaval can do that to a person – throw their emotional reactions all out of whack. I sensed he was pretty much at the breaking point and there was nothing I could do to help; he needed to deal with this on his own.

"Listen," I said. "It's late, we're both tired, and right now we're also both too confused to have a sensible conversation about this. Why don't we sleep on it tonight, and maybe talk about this tomorrow over breakfast, all right?"

He gave me a small smile – his lips barely turned up at the corners, but I know him, and it **was** a smile – and said, "Sounds good."

So now, here I sit, on my bed, reliving my first kiss…and second, and third, and fourth, and…and it was with Seto. I have no idea what tomorrow will bring, but right now I am the happiest girl in the world.

I grabbed the stuffed Blue Eyes White Dragon that Mokuba gave me for Christmas – very astute kid, I think he knew how I felt about his brother before **I** did – and squeezed it tight. My stuffed Kuriboh – which Seto gave me – seemed to smile happily from his perch on the shelf above my bed.

I may not have **my** dragon in my arms tonight, but I think Taiyuu here will make a fine substitute until I can hold Seto in my arms at night. He might think he doesn't know how to love, but I am positive he can. He might not've said the words…but his kisses said everything for him.


End file.
